The Currents of Time
by maximsk
Summary: Skyrim's Civil War is over. Alduin has been defeated. But the Aldmeri Dominion is ready to do what the dragons could not. The Dragonborn's work, for better or for worse, is far from done.
1. Thorald 1

8:00 AM, approx. 4E 201

Northern Skyrim

Thorald Gray-Mane had lost track of the days long ago.

They kept the prisoners deep underground. This place was a ruin. The stone bricks were slimy with moss. The cold would have been unbearable for anyone but a Nord.

Two tall figures in elegant armor were dragging him by the arms down a corridor. It was the same every day. His feet had become callused where the floor scraped at his heels.

The corridor ended with a door. It was already open. Thorald's stomach turned. He knew what awaited him.

The figures took him into a room, around a bend. They fixed his wrists to the wall by iron shackles, and then left. The door closed behind them. Thorald was left crouching with his arms held above him. He lifted his head.

The interrogator sat with one leg crossed on a wooden chair. His pointed, elven face was barely visible beneath his hood. The torchlight was too dim. He seemed to be smirking.

"Good morning, Stormcloak," the interrogator drawled. Thorald instantly wanted to break his bonds and wring the elf's insufferable neck. That arrogant Aldmeri voice… He tried not to let it show.

The interrogator didn't seem to notice, or perhaps care. "Don't you ever tire of lying? We already know you support the Jarl of Windhelm in his little rebellion. We simply want you to tell the truth."

Thorald's voice shook, but his words held firm. "I am Thorald Gray-Mane, and my loyalty is my o-"

Searing pain. Magical sparks snapping into his chest. He tried not to scream. His sight went hazy.

The interrogator spoke once more. Thorald imagined the elf's skin being peeled off by angry Dremora. "Why must you do this to yourself? You and I both know that eventually, no matter how long it takes, you will admit which side you have taken in the war against the Empire. Everything between now and then is simply-"

The door opened. Two men stepped into the room. One was dressed in elven armor. The other wore the steel of the Imperial Legion. It was like a kick in Thorald's mouth. He knew the Empire deferred to the Thalmor, but… Not like this. This was too much.

"What…!" The interrogator snapped with righteous indignation, before he noticed the Thalmor agent escorting the Imperial inside. "Is the meaning of this?"

The armored elf replied, "This Imperial soldier has been sent from General Tullius. It seems our guest's loyalties are even more complex than we suspected."

The soldier spoke next. His voice was strangely familiar. Thorald didn't like it. "I recognized the name of your captive. It belongs to a sleeper agent of the Empire. I've come to identify him."

The interrogator nodded curtly. He rose from his chair and dusted off his fancy black robes. Thorald couldn't imagine why. "Raise your face, prisoner. Look at your supposed contact."

The Imperial soldier was wearing a helmet. Thorald couldn't see his face through the visor, not in this light. That eerie voice asked, "This is Thorald Gray-Mane?"

The interrogator seemed to be getting used to the idea of having another non-elf in the room. "Correct. Does he match your memory?"

The Imperial's response was to draw the sword from his belt, and in the same fluid stroke, slash open the side of the interrogator's neck.

Thorald couldn't believe that that had just happened. The Thalmor soldier didn't look like he could either. He began to draw his own weapon, but the Imperial knocked it out of his hand. The elven blade flew and clattered off the wall.

The interrogator clutched at his neck. His eyes were wide, his mouth was wide. Blood was everywhere. It had even sprayed out on the Imperial's armor.

The Imperial kicked the Thalmor soldier in the belly. The elf stumbled backwards into a cupboard. Cups and bottles knocked over. The elf had just long enough to look up as the Imperial lunged and impaled him through the chest.

By the time the interrogator fell to the ground, the Imperial had already wrenched his sword free. The steel was dripping red all the way down to the hilt. It had punched through that Thalmor armor like it wasn't even there.

Thorald didn't know what to say. He stared, open-mouthed.

The Imperial pulled off his helmet with one hand and looked at Thorald. This wasn't possible. That blond hair, that rugged face…

"It's me. Idolaf Battle-Born. The war is over. I'm here to rescue you."


	2. Paarthurnax 1

Middas, 3:10 PM, 26th of Sun's Dusk, 4E 201

The Throat of the World

For countless thousands of years, the dragon Paarthurnax had endured the inexorable decay of time atop this icy summit. He knew what the mortals of Tamriel had failed to remember: Alduin's banishment merely delayed the inevitable. One day, his enemy would return to this world. And so he had waited, in isolation, as the eras went by, kingdoms rose and fell, and the Dragon War faded into distant legend. And the Dragonborn had asked if he could bear to wait here for one afternoon. Very considerate, Dragonborn.

A lone man rose, step by weightless step, above the mountaintop precipice. He had borne his full suit of armor through his entire climb. Someday, Paarthurnax might ask just how that worked. Hunched on his rocky perch, he peered at the man with pale, aged eyes. That armor was not from this era. For a mortal with a dragon's soul, it was curiously fitting.

"Dovahkiin," the dragon rumbled.

The man removed his golden helmet as he approached. It was a clear, bright, windless afternoon. He suffered none for it.

"Paarthurnax," the man answered, in his small, human voice. When Paarthurnax had first met the Dovahkiin, he had demanded they follow the ancient custom of demonstrating their Thu'ums. This had not been his original plan. He simply could not have believed, despite his endless preparation, that this tiny two-legged creature was in fact a dov like himself. Though he would never admit it, that entire conversation, including the Dragonborn's mastery of a new Thu'um, had been the result of the ancient dragon's incredulity.

Some seconds of silence passed. Paarthurnax inclined his head inquisitively. "I will not presume the purpose of this meeting for you, Dovahkiin."

"I wanted to talk to you." The Dovahkiin held his helmet under one arm. "To seek your counsel. You know Skyrim is all part of the Empire again, but the Thalmor are furious."

"Thalmor… mmm…" Paarthurnax had traveled far and wide in the few weeks since Alduin's defeat. He recognized that name. The leaders of some faction of mer, he understood. The word 'Thalmor' felt unnatural on his tongue. "I do not understand you, Dovahkiin. Why do you bring this matter to me?"

The Dragonborn replied with commendable patience. He reminded Paarthurnax of himself. "You've worked alongside me to save this world already. You can't tell me you think Skyrim is safe just because Alduin is gone."

"The mortal plane is safe. I would use my own power to fight for nothing less." A hint of discomfort entered Paarthurnax's voice.

The Dragonborn raised his hand in a placating gesture. "I don't need you to fight. But I've never fought in a war before. Please, just tell me what I should be doing."

"Very well, Dovahkiin." Paarthurnax let out a long, slow breath. "You are of a practical mind, even for a mortal, and so I will address you as such. I will tell you what I know from my brief travels. You have united this land with the land of the Imperials with little enough bloodshed. The pretender Ulfric Stormcloak was born not far from this mountaintop. He wished to make this land, Skyrim, into its own. But the Thalmor were not born here. They will not fight to set this land free. They will fight to kill you."

The man nodded once, but said nothing.

The dragon understood this as a sign to continue. "You are a dovah in mortal form, and this makes you one of the most powerful mortals in history. The Thalmor will not easily kill you. They will easily kill those you wish to protect. Your resolution to the pretender's war saved many lives, but the people of this land are weak, and scattered. You must protect them."

"What? They're already under the Empire's banner. What do you want me to do, build them a fortress?"

"If you must, Dovahkiin. The guardians you have given this land to… The Empire… They are weak. They have already endured too much war. You must be the one to raise the forces to fight the Thalmor."

"Well, that's good, I haven't... Done any wars before. Are you sure this is a good idea?"

"You have already done that which you were destined to do. I cannot predict what will come next." Paarthurnax let out a weary growl and laid himself on the cold rock. He found no pleasure in giving this lesson, even if it was necessary.

"All right." The man had the sharply focused look of real thought. He nodded once more. "Thank you for coming to see me."

Before finally departing, the Dragonborn did something strange. He walked the rest of the way to Paarthurnax, reached out an armored hand and ran it along the dragon's snout. If there was a meaning to this, Paarthurnax did not understand what it was, and he was too surprised to ask. A gesture of thanks? Or affection?

He would need to meditate for another thousand years to know what the Dragonborn felt.


	3. Noster 1

Middas, 4:51 PM, 26th of Sun's Dusk, 4E 201

Outside High Hrothgar

Noster Eagle-Eye had never seen Tamriel in such beauty. Once his fighting days had been forced to end, he thought he'd see nothing but the streets of Solitude. But now, looking out over endless plains, standing above all Skyrim, he was beginning to realize a few new things about the world.

He and Iseus had set out from High Hrothgar not five minutes ago. His Imperial uniform still smelled of new leather, but it was little help against this cold. He said nothing. Iseus was the Dragonborn, and he owed that man more than complaints.

"We have work to do," Iseus was saying. The mist of warm breath in icy air vented through his visor's slits. "Both of us."

Noster couldn't help himself. "What happened up there?"

"Paarthurnax has been in a war already. I have not. He offered some insights I wouldn't have thought of."

The Dragonborn had already explained to Noster that Paarthurnax was a dragon. A good dragon, by the sounds of it. That made as much sense as any of this. "I'll be honest, Iseus. I don't like it up here. Those Greybeard fellows, in High Hrothgar, they wouldn't _say_ anything to me."

"I appreciate your honesty." There was a hint of amusement in Iseus' voice. "The Greybeards' voices seem to speak only in Thu'ums. It's said a Greybeard could kill a person just by trying to have a chat with them."

"Thu'ums?"

"Shouts, sorry. You know, like…" The Dragonborn paused, looked forwards, and braced himself. "_Fus!_" An invisible wall of energy, no better way to describe it, burst forth from the Dragonborn, and swept up the snow for a few meters ahead of him before vanishing.

That was the first time Noster had witnessed the power of Iseus' voice. He would've said he was in awe, but after all he'd seen in the past week, this was just another new thing.

Noster had first seen the Dragonborn from just across the street, strolling into town wearing that ancient golden armor of his. At the time, Noster had been a nameless Imperial beggar, wearing nothing but rags. He recalled walking up to the armored man, asking him if he could please spare some gold… And then the two of them started talking. Noster explained how he'd once served as a scout for the Imperial Legion, during the thick of the Great War, and how he'd lost an eye fighting at Anvil. He'd been left for dead that day. By the time he'd fought his way back north to Solitude, by himself, Noster had nothing. Those rags he'd been wearing, those were actually the remains of his old uniform.

And the next thing he knew, the Dragonborn was inviting him along. Giving him new clothes, new supplies, bringing him along out of the city. Noster had no idea why. He hadn't done anything. But this man in gold was talking to him, seemingly without end, asking him questions Noster would never have thought of. And then he'd left Noster in Whiterun.

That leg of the journey had been… Peculiar, to say the least. The Dragonborn didn't say what he was doing, but he left Noster in town and just headed off without him. It was planned, of course. Noster had been left with a hefty sum of gold to stay afloat with, more gold than he'd ever seen in one place since his days in the Legion. He did his best not to spend it all at once. Many beggars would spend any extra coin on drinking and gambling, but really, Noster was content to re-explore the town. He hadn't been here in years.

Somehow, the Imperial ended up being free to enter the hilltop keep, Dragonsreach, and speak to Jarl Balgruuf in person. Something about being a friend of the Thane. Even during his time in the Legion, no Jarl had treated him with such honest warmth. After hearing Noster's story, Balgruuf thanked him for his service, and asked him if there was anything Whiterun could offer him while he was in the city. Noster hadn't even known what to say.

And then, soon as he'd left, Iseus was back, practically dragging Noster by the hand as they left town, heading south for a little village called Riverwood. All Iseus would say was that the Empire had defeated the Stormcloak Rebellion, and that he had to consult someone named Paarthurnax for advice. Now it looked like that advice had paid off.

Now, Noster was ready to listen to the Dragonborn's instructions. "You said we both have work to do. What did you mean?"

"The Thalmor are about to go to war with us. Skyrim's people are in grave danger. They need a stronghold."

"Our cities are already fortified, aren't they?"

"Not all of us have the fortune to live safe behind stone walls. Especially not after the Civil War." The Dragonborn sounded like he'd rehearsed his lines. That, or he was just exceptionally confident. "Paarthurnax said that our people are scattered. It took me a little bit to figure out what he meant. I've seen so many homeless migrants over the past months. Villages burning, towns burning, people fleeing…"

"You really think the Thalmor will just start picking off stragglers?" Noster frowned. From what he'd heard, the Thalmor were the secretive elites of the Aldmeri Dominion. They liked to pull strings behind the scenes. They wouldn't just ride out like bandits and start slaughtering villagers at random.

"No, definitely not. They're just people for us to gather into one safe place. Once we _have_ that one safe place… The Thalmor are going to have a much, much harder time overrunning Skyrim."

"I see." Noster nodded slowly. To think… Skyrim was going to war once again. What the Dragonborn saw in him was a mystery, but for better or for worse, he knew his days of begging in Solitude were over. "What are we going to do, then?"

"I'm going to be doing some traveling. In the meantime, I'd like you to head back to Whiterun. There's something I need you to do for me."


	4. Brynjolf 1

Fredas, 6:33 PM, 5th of Evening Star, 4E 201

The Ragged Flagon

Brynjolf hadn't been around for the founding of Skyrim's Thieves Guild. If he had, he might've put its headquarters someplace besides the sewers of Riften. The sewers. There were cisterns, huge pools of murky water, just right in the middle of every room. The ceilings were these shallow domes that peaked maybe fifteen feet above the water. How could any man call this place home, let alone an entire guild? It mystified him to this day.

This room, specifically, was where the tavern was. The main stockpile of ale and mead, in other words. The Guildmaster (and his long-time friend), Karliah, was chattering away with Vex and the others. Brynjolf had his feet up on the table, eyes closed, playing a tune in his head. Besides the whole 'sewer' issue, he had to admit that this place did feel much more like home than it did a few months ago.

A few months ago, Brynjolf was still second-in-command of this operation like he was now, but Mercer Frey was the one in charge of things. A lot had changed since then. Mercer Frey turned out to have stolen every last coin from the guild vault. Karliah had been falsely thought a murderer, but she returned from her exile to stop Mercer herself. No one knew all of that tale but her.

Across the cistern, someone came in through the door to the Ratway. Brynjolf opened his eyes and turned slowly to look. The person was wearing heavy black robes, with the hood up. Impossible to identify.

Dirge took notice right away, good lad. He put his hand on the hilt of his weapon as the hooded person circled around the pool. "Who're you?" Dirge demanded. "Show your face."

The person nodded and pulled his hood back. Brynjolf scanned him over silently. It was a man, in his late twenties, maybe early thirties, rugged, muscular sort of build, light brown skin … Maybe part Redguard? … Black hair a couple inches long, parted in the center Nord-style, like Brynjolf's own. He was no priest, no spellcaster, probably a warrior. In that case, there was definitely at least one weapon hidden in those loose black robes.

"My name is Iseus," the robed man said. "I'm the Dragonborn."

The entire room fell silent. Brynjolf swung his feet down to the ground and sat up. Dirge glanced back at the others, not sure what to do. He must have wanted to ask this fellow to prove it, but that might have been a bad idea.

"OK, fine, here." Iseus turned to look at the pool of water. "_Fo krah diin._"

The man's voice turned unnatural. Like a creature far beyond the power of men was speaking through a man's mouth. And then a crackling wave of pale blue frost spread over the cistern. By the time it met the far wall, the entire surface of the water was frozen solid.

Dirge stared slack-jawed. So did Brynjolf. What.

Iseus continued like he hadn't just frozen a cistern of water with his voice. "Is Brynjolf here? I'd like to speak with him, if you don't mind."

Brynjolf shakily rose from his seat. He had to steady himself on the edge of the table. "That would be me, Dragonborn. What… What brings you down here?" He winced inside at that phrasing. He couldn't think, his heart was pounding.

"I'd like to speak to you. In private, if that's possible." Brynjolf had to admit, the Dragonborn spoke far more… Amiably, maybe, than he'd expected. "You must have heard the news about the war."

"Aye, lad, every last corner of Skyrim's heard it." The Nord stepped on past Vex, Karliah, even Dirge… His partners in thievery. And walked up to the Dragonborn himself. "Let's…"

He looked back at the others. Every one of them was frozen in place, waiting silently to see what he'd do. Then he looked at that cistern. Also frozen. "Let's head to the back, alright?"

There were two main sort of chambers to the Thieves Guild headquarters. Two big cold cisterns, both ringed by brick floors under brick arches. The second cistern was behind the first. Brynjolf led Iseus through into the back room, then along the side of the water. He was getting strange looks from the guild members. Ignored them. Went into a small side room, furnished for practicing. Brynjolf sat down on a wooden chest and looked at Iseus, patient as he could.

Iseus sat down on another one of the chests. It was actually brighter in here than the cisterns. The torches had less space to light up. The closer look didn't tell Brynjolf much about the Dragonborn that he hadn't noticed at first, but he could tell he was being looked over himself.

"I've asked all over Skyrim," Iseus started saying, "who's the craftiest person I could hire. The one with the most guile, the most street-smart. Anyone who knows anything has sent me to you."

"Well, what do you need me for lad?" So the Dragonborn was here for business. Brynjolf allowed himself a little smile, and sat back against the wall, one leg crossed.

"I'm going to be starting something big. Something… I don't want the Thalmor to be listening in on. I want your help keeping them off my scent."

Brynjolf choked with disbelief. "The… _Thalmor?_ What in Oblivion do you want me to do about _them?_"

"I just said." Iseus looked confused. "I don't want them to know what I'm up to. And I want you at my side for this. You're the best, or so I'm told."

"Well…" At least he had an idea of what to expect now. The Nord nodded slowly, putting on a look of being deep in thought, which he actually was. So he'd be trying to fend off the Thalmor. No more big surprises today. "Can't say I expected to ever be trying to hold the line against other prying eyes. How much are you willing to pay me?"

Iseus shook his head. "I'm not going to pay you."

Brynjolf choked again. All right, he was wrong. "What…! Are you joking, lad! You can't just tell a thief to work for you for free!"

"Come on, Brynjolf. I thought you were sharper than that." Iseus rubbed his eyes. His hands didn't look all that callused. Brynjolf guessed he usually wore gloves. "The moment the Thalmor realize you're working for me, what's the first thing they're going to do? They'll try to bribe you into turning on me. And chances are, they'll bribe you with all the riches they can. More than I have, for sure."

"And… Why shouldn't I just say yes to their offer, then?"

"Because if you do, they'll ruin my work protecting Skyrim, the Thalmor will march in, and we will all die."

Now it was Brynjolf's turn to rub his eyes. He was being asked to work for free, in a job that had to be… Easily the most dangerous he'd ever been asked to do in his entire life. And the worst thing of all was, he was actually considering doing it! Maybe it was something about the way the Dragonborn talked. Some sort of natural air of authority, maybe. Funny. Brynjolf hated airs of authority.

It was a good few seconds before Brynjolf answered. "What do you need for me to do, lad?"

"First thing." Iseus leaned forward and rested an elbow on his knee. His other hand formed into a pointed finger. "No one can know. Not even your friends here. I'm assuming the usual Imperial channels of communication, those are all under Thalmor scrutiny. But your guild can't be involved. At best, the Thalmor would unravel your correspondence with them. At worst, the Thalmor would destroy this whole place to get to you."

Brynjolf had already known this would be the most dangerous thing he'd been asked to do. But he was just starting to understand what that really meant. He swallowed, involuntarily, as discreetly as he could. "What should I tell them, then? I'm probably going to be out of town for a while, eh?"

"You can tell your friends you're just being dragged off on some quest for endless riches, if you like. But they can't know any more than that."

"Fair enough, lad." It wasn't easy to believe this was really happening. Everything had been so nice, back in the old era of fifteen minutes ago. "What comes after your first thing, then?"

"You follow me out of town. I'm going to need to give you some clothes that don't look so…" The Dragonborn waved his hand at Brynjolf's outfit. All black leather and straps and buckles and pouches, from the neck down. The man had to admit, he did look like a thief right then. "And then we'll be on the road. I'll fill you in on the details once we're away from curious ears."

"Wise lad," Brynjolf nodded approvingly at that last bit. He sat back again and ran his hands over his face. "You sure you need me to do this? I mean… I understand, I know why you want me for it, it's just… I'm not sure I'll even come back here alive."

"I'll do all I can to protect you," Iseus said quietly. "I'm doing all I can to protect everyone."

Brynjolf tightened his lips and nodded. "All right, lad. I'll drink to that."

The man's throat was so dry. He didn't know how it'd gotten that way. Anyway, he was pretty sure there was some of that good Black-Briar mead right here in the chest he was sitting on. So he stood up, kicked the lid open, reached in… When did his hands get so shaky? Pulled out a couple of bottles, set one down, tried to open up the other… Couldn't even get a good grip on the cork. He looked behind him at the Dragonborn.

"Here." Iseus reached his hand out. Brynjolf couldn't describe the look on that man's face. Concerned, maybe? Something. He didn't know.

Iseus popped the cork off the bottle of mead with his thumb, then immediately handed it back to Brynjolf, who just stared. "You can keep the other bottle," he said, with a voice that matched that look on his face.

Brynjolf nodded in appreciation and sat back down heavily on the lid of the chest. He took a deep swig of the mead, then opened his mouth to speak … then took another swig of the mead, for good measure, then tried again. "The war with the Stormcloaks was bad for business, but… That's all I ever really thought of it. Not my concern who sits on what throne ruling over where, all of that, that's nothing to me. This… Isn't going to be like that war, is it?"

"No," the Dragonborn said softly. "This time, you have a chance to help. Which is good, I think. Your wits just may end up saving us all."

A long pause. … Brynjolf took a gulp from his mead.


	5. J'zargo 1

Loredas, 9:01 PM, 13th of Evening Star, 4E 201

Winterhold

"Khajiit does not understand why you are here."

The Dragonborn led him out of the college doors, into the cold. This did not make him happier. Not many of his people wished to become mages. The College of Winterhold seemed to be the only true college of arcane wisdom in all Tamriel, and it was frozen with ice. This alone was a sacrifice, for a man who longed for the sands of Elsweyr. He wished the Dragonborn had stayed indoors with him.

On the other hand, this far north, the night sky was lit with the colors of aurora. Even the powers of arcane magic could not recreate such magnificence. It was the only good reason he could think of for coming out here.

"It's simple," the man in golden armor said. He was leading J'zargo across the precarious stone bridge to the rest of the town of Winterhold. Over the noise of the freezing wind, the man's voice was barely heard. "I need a mage to assist me. You can't be so removed from Skyrim that you just haven't heard about the war."

The cold made it so hard to even think. J'zargo's robes and hood did nothing. Even his thick Khajiit fur did nothing. The beast races were not suited for this place. He needed to remind himself that the Dragonborn had even said something.

"J'zargo is not so removed," the Khajiit answered warily.

"Excellent. Then you know that the Thalmor are about to wage war on us. Their spies are more active than ever. You must understand why I brought you out here instead of just talking to you back in the college."

_So no one can listen in._ Jzargo made a mental note that the Dragonborn was no fool. There had been a Thalmor agent in the college, until recently. He was quite simply there to spy on the College, and so everyone had kept him in the dark. J'zargo had not even thought that the elves might have sent less obvious agents. And to think, J'zargo's own feline appearance had brought him no suspicion in the College, where Khajiit were distrusted throughout Skyrim.

"Yes, J'zargo understands."

"The Imperial Legion isn't going to be enough to hold off the Thalmor. The Empire is too weak, especially after this civil war, it just won't happen. I'm going to need to defend this place with a stronghold of my own. An army of my own."

The Khajiit now followed the Dragonborn through the town of Winterhold itself. At this hour, no one walked the streets but a handful of guards. It was sad, J'zargo thought, that only a small corner of this town still stood. The rest had fallen into the ocean before he had been born. He would have liked, as long as he was so far north, to see Winterhold in its days of glory.

"What do you wish for J'zargo to do?" The Khajiit might have narrowed his eyes, but the Dragonborn was not even looking at him. "J'zargo wishes to become a great mage, one day. But this has not yet happened."

"Well, don't tell me you think you're out of your league."

Was this a challenge? J'zargo enjoyed challenges. The challenge of magic had brought him to Winterhold, after all. "J'zargo has heard stories of the Dragonborn. Not those common stories of the powers of the voice. Stories of a mastery of magic, magic as we know it."

"It's not nearly enough." The Dragonborn shook his head.

The two of them had ventured past the few buildings of Winterhold, out into the open road. To the left was frozen ocean. To the right were frozen mountains. Khajiit were not blinded by the dark of night. J'zargo observed the jagged peaks of the mountains even from here.

The Dragonborn was continuing to speak. He stopped, and turned around to face J'zargo head-on. "The Arch-Mage recommended you to me. I trust you to be a good learner. That'll matter more than anything you already know."

J'zargo allowed himself a smile. It was true. His ambition to learn, he felt, was unrivaled in the College.

"Do you know the firebolt spell, J'zargo?"

"Yes, of course." The Khajiit did not mean to sound so testy. The cold must have been wearing on him. "Do you wish for J'zargo to demonstrate?"

The armored man wordlessly gestured to the mountainside and stepped back.

J'zargo opened his hand. A ball of flickering orange light quickly grew above his palm. Swirling, magical flames. They were pleasantly warm on his hand. He loved it. There was a chunk of ice on the mountainside. J'zargo aimed, and hurled the ball like a throwing knife. He felt the magicka leaving his body as the flame streaked away into the cold. The firebolt burst over the icy target and melted a concave dish. Success. The apprentice mage turned to the Dragonborn expectantly.

A nod of approval from the Dragonborn. "The destruction school of magic," he said. "It was never very useful for me. The schools of utility, though... Alchemy and enchanting, I mean."

From someplace on his back, the Dragonborn produced a red enameled vial, palm-sized, stoppered with a cork. He held it out to J'zargo in his golden-plated hand. "Drink this and try that spell again."

Was this simply a demonstration of the Dragonborn's own power? J'zargo trusted that this vial was not filled with poison, if nothing else. He twisted the stopper off and poured the liquid inside down his throat.

It was like drinking liquid fire. J'zargo struggled not to gag. Something flooded through him. New awareness. He felt unlocked. The vial slipped from his fingers and landed someplace. It didn't matter. He brought forth the energy of his firebolt, flung the flaming missile at the same target as before… The blossom of fire was bright enough to make J'zargo avert his gaze. It had melted not only the entire chunk of ice, but some of the mountainside's frozen surface as well.

The Dragonborn looked on silently as J'zargo turned back to him, eyes wide. "What _is_ this? What did J'zargo drink?"

"A potion I made," the Dragonborn replied with obvious pride. "Potion of destruction. I thought I would give it to somebody here to show what I do."

The feeling of magical awareness persisted. J'zargo now had time to think on it. This was not skooma. There was no special pleasure in experiencing the potion's effects, nothing that might addict him. Besides, of course, his power being magnified beyond belief.

The Dragonborn noted the moment of silence. "If a mage were to excel in only one school of magic, I would hope it to be alchemy. Every other school of magic can benefit from it."

J'zargo didn't quite hear the Dragonborn's words. His mind was elsewhere. In order to master the power of the voice, as he understood it, one had to spend years with the Greybeards in High Hrothgar. Even then, it would be all but impossible for most. The Dragonborn's natural talent in this regard was nothing J'zargo would be able to mimic. It was useless to learn from. Not so with alchemy. Alchemy was provided for in the College of Winterhold, but it was none of the teachers' specialty. This was the first taste the Khajiit had of alchemy's true potential.

"If J'zargo travels with you," J'zargo said, attempting to contain his eagerness, "will he learn the power of alchemy that you have? Will he be able to one day create the sort of potion he just drank?"

The Dragonborn chuckled. J'zargo thought it was a chuckle, at least. "Yes. If you have the capacity to learn, then definitely yes. I know I'd like having an apprentice."

J'zargo nodded slowly. The effects of that potion had worn off, but a new feeling had arisen in him. He could hardly believe what was being presented to him today. The Arch-Mage had unknowingly done a vital favor for J'zargo, sending him to the Dragonborn. If anyone at the College had witnessed the Dragonborn's display of alchemical power, they might not have even let him leave without learning how he did it. Now, J'zargo was being sent, by himself, to learn the Dragonborn's ways. This new feeling could only be described as a realization, a dawning realization, that everything was about to change for him.

"J'zargo is willing to travel with you." He paused to let the Dragonborn acknowledge him. "Though he has one more question. You wish to provide a stronghold for the people of Skyrim. Where do you wish for this stronghold to be?"

"I was waiting for you to ask that…"


	6. Ancano 1

Middas, 10:18 AM, 10th of Evening Star, 4E 201

Jehanna Aldmeri Camp

They were all prisoners, Ancano thought. The soldiers, the wizards, the Justiciars, the officials, every last elf of the Thalmor was trapped in his or her role. Some Aldmeri politician who'd never been in a fight in his life had once pontificated that this arrangement, the hierarchy of the Thalmor, was the best way to defend Alinor, to one day realize the ideal of elven supremacy. But if elves were truly descended from gods, then how could they submit themselves to spend their own hopes and ambitions on an apparatus of war and repression? None of them were free to speak their minds or pursue their desires. That would harm the apparatus. They were captives with the empty luck of being on the open side of the prison bars.

Three weeks ago, Ancano had been posted at the College of Winterhold. The official reason for his presence was to serve in an advisory capacity to the Arch-Mage. The unofficial reason was to spy on the College's affairs in the interest of the Dominion. The actual reason was that Ancano wanted to get as far away from his Thalmor colleagues as possible. It wasn't the worst place to spend his time, he reasoned. There were no other Altmer, no other elves of his stature, but that simply meant no more Thalmor. And there had been something involving a mysterious orb being discovered in Saarthal, he truly had wanted to look into that. A pity.

But then the civil war was brought to an untimely halt. The Aldmeri Dominion, in response to General Tullius' ultimatum, severed its diplomatic relations with the Empire, and removed all relevant personnel from Imperial territory. This included Ancano. He had reluctantly consented to follow his Thalmor escorts out of Winterhold, but he would not be persuaded to return to Alinor. He had grown to enjoy his freedom.

Unfortunately, true to the nature of the Thalmor, following one's heart was a promise for disaster. After the embassy in Skyrim had been evacuated, and Elenwen had been sent back to Alinor, the simple truth of the matter was that Ancano was the highest-ranking Thalmor officer anywhere north of the Imperial City. And so he had been promoted to the rank of general, and given the task of leading the Aldmeri attack on Skyrim.

Ancano had been given little time to prepare, but he had immediately known that he would rally the Aldmeri attack force in the northwestern province of High Rock. It shared a border with Skyrim. He actually made it there by himself, on foot.

After the Oblivion Crisis, little of this place had been left standing. High Rock had remained neutral in the Great War because the locals hadn't the strength to fight for either side. The camp Ancano had ordered the establishment of was located not five miles outside Jehanna, one of High Rock's few surviving cities, and the locals had yet to even spot them.

Now Ancano sat in a comfortably spacious blue canvas tent, enjoying the warm air, in an elegant chair across a broad table from another elf wearing the black robes of the Justiciars. He was smiling thinly. He couldn't believe how much he hated it here.

"I gathered all of the Justiciars that I could, General," the elf was saying. This was Prime Justiciar Elevir. Three weeks ago, he had been… Somewhere in Skyrim. Ancano didn't care. "When I heard the news, I feared the worst for my peers."

"That the Empire might see fit to repay us for our treatment of the Blades?" That had been back before the Great War, but still.

Elevir nodded uncomfortably. Ancano's smile widened. "Yes, General. The camp is already host to over fifty Justiciars. More come in every day."

"I trust you haven't released any information about this camp." Ancano's voice grew testy, but in truth, he didn't care about this either. The Imperials had to know that this was where the attack on Skyrim would come from. There was nowhere else to launch it. Cyrodiil was the core territory of the Empire, Hammerfell had _won_ their fight against the Aldmeri Dominion, and the only route for a direct amphibious attack would be to Skyrim's north coast, which Ancano imagined would have similar success to repeatedly ramming their ships into icebergs to pass the time.

"Of course not! There's nowhere else for the Justiciars to flee to." For the exact same reasons that there was nowhere else to attack from, of course. Something about that gave Ancano the most irritating headache.

"You must excuse me, Elevir. I cannot abide this canvas closet." Ancano stood suddenly from his chair and circled around to the tent flaps. When was the last time he'd stayed in a dwelling he could exit through _flaps_? His doorless prison cell of a bedroom in the College of Winterhold looked remarkably comfortable in retrospect.

Once, long ago, Ancano had hated the sensation of stepping out into the cold outdoors. And he still did, but after Winterhold, this was nothing. Still, his borrowed soldiers from the embassy were shrewd surveyors. Of all the crooked, rocky plains in this corner of High Rock, this particular plain was especially boring. There was literally nothing to look at but some mountains off to the east, which they would need to scale in order to reach Skyrim.

The officers' tents were in a neat row atop a broad, rocky ledge. As he stepped out, Ancano raised his hood to shield his eyes from the sun, and his ears from the cold. Elevir seemed to be doing the same.

"Do you think we're ready to proceed?" Ancano glanced sideways to his subordinate. He hated that it felt so good to have subordinates like him.

Beyond the ledge, there lay the rest of the tents. The first wave of the Aldmeri invasion force. Rows and columns of blue canvas roofs, as far as Ancano could see. Too many for him to count, though he'd been told he'd receive some five thousand men to start. Ancano had never looked upon an army like this before, even during the Great War. That being said, he imagined it shouldn't have been so _quiet_. It was the middle of the morning. The soldiers should have been up and about, talking to one another, doing whatever they did, but the only noise out here was the wind.

"We have the mountains of the Reach to scale," Elevir answered. Ancano didn't bother to turn and look at him. "The other Justiciars and I had to already, in order to escape. The roads across are few, far between, and dangerous. Not many people pass between Skyrim and High Rock."

"Thank you for your insights." The general paused for a bit of extra effect. "We will need to secure a foothold on the far side of those mountains immediately. Markarth would make for a good stronghold, don't you think?"

"Markarth, yes. Safest city in the Reach."

"That's what they say."

"Well, don't tell me you believe them."

"What do _you_ believe, Elevir?"

"The truth?" Elevir shifted around in the corner of Ancano's eye. "I've served as a Justiciar for twenty-four years. Eight of those were in Skyrim. The Reach is the most dangerous of the Nine Holds, and that's the end of that."

"Now, that I would like to see. A month ago, I was in that frozen waste they call Winterhold."

"Winterhold has a harsher climate, yes. Haafingar is tighter, more tightly held Imperial territory, the Rift is… A crime den, essentially. But the Reach has been a warzone for as long as I can remember. The locals are savages. They resisted the Nords and they resist the Empire."

"Careful, Elevir, you'll give me something to look forward to."

Elevir made an exasperated noise and turned away. "We were never supposed to invade Skyrim. Not like this. Every other province the Empire controlled has peeled away over the years. Even Hammerfell, with the White-Gold Concordat being signed. This is a disaster."

"What, war with Skyrim?" Finally, Ancano turned and looked at Elevir. They were roughly the same height, which surprised him. Most Altmer were a bit shorter than he was. "We anticipated this."

"But not _yet_. The Civil War was… Aborted. They're back under the Empire's wing. If you think Skyrim's people thought ill of the Thalmor before, you don't want to see them now. They've come together, against us. And everyone knows why."

"The Dragonborn." Ancano sighed. This was a man from Nordic legend. A man, not a mer. Something about him was not natural.

"Yes. The last intelligence I heard about him said that he was on his way to Riften."

"That… Please, enlighten me, what good is that information?" Part of Ancano wished to feign knowledge of what that meant, but… Why? Acting powerful did not agree with common sense.

"It means he's busy. If you'll recall, that's where he located the fugitive Blade. Esbern."

"Nobody told me that, actually."

Elevir blinked.

"It matters not, Elevir. We have a plan. We will adhere to it, until such a time that your intelligence alters those plans. Now, I have a squalid canvas hut to hide in. I suggest you return to whatever it is that Justiciars do. Tomorrow is the day that we depart, and I must prepare."

And that was that. Elevir walked past Ancano to another one of the tents and disappeared from view. The guards on patrol were nowhere near here, and no other officers were outside. Ancano was alone. He felt like someone had lifted a weight from the inside of his skull.

It was a beautiful morning outside. Ancano pulled his hood back, baring his pointed ears to the cold, and sat down on the edge of the officers' plateau, legs hanging free in front of him. It was some forty feet down to the rest of the tents. The soldiers out in the open looked like little golden ants. He wondered what must have been going through their minds. What they'd left behind in Alinor, what they thought of the Dominion. Whether any of them felt any freer than he did.


	7. Thorald 2

Turdas, 12:31 PM, 4th of Evening Star, 4E 201

Solitude

It took a week to travel to Solitude. It wasn't that far away, but all of Haafingar, everything north of Dragon Bridge, was one big mountain range. They had to go around it. On horseback, thankfully. Thorald doubted he had the strength to walk.

They'd exited the snowy mountains of the far north by now, on to the forests that filled the rest of the hold. The path meandered through tall naked trees. The leaves were all covering the ground. In fact, the path was only visible because there were already hoof prints through it. The first few days, Thorald had been too weak to even talk to his rescuer, but now they were speaking freely.

Idolaf rode alongside Thorald. He looked awfully smart in that Imperial armor of his. "I think we're getting close. I remember Dragon Bridge being southwest of here."

Thorald was wearing a stolen Thalmor robe to stave off the cold. It felt even filthier than the prisoner's rags he still wore beneath. "Why Solitude?"

The Legionnaire glanced at him. "Well, it's a city, for one thing. I'll want someone who knows medicine to look at you. But besides that, it's the Imperial military capital in Skyrim. Castle Dour is there. General Tullius is there."

"You want to bring me to General Tullius," Thorald said flatly. He, the notorious supporter of the Stormcloaks.

"What, you think your stance in the Civil War matters anymore? Skyrim is unified again. If the Stormcloak soldiers are getting away without punishment, they can't punish a Stormcloak _sympathizer_."

"But why to the General himself?"

"You were in Thalmor custody for almost a year. He might like to hear from you."

"They didn't tell me anything. They just tried to make me admit to supporting the Stormcloaks." _And they failed._ Thorald allowed himself the pride that came with that knowledge.

"Fortunately, Ulfric Stormcloak is gone."

"Why is that fortunate?"

"Tell me, Thorald. Who was Ulfric Stormcloak to you?"

"A Nord hero." The pride made it into Thorald's voice now. "The Empire failed to protect us, and Ulfric stepped up. He was going to let us all be free. He had an ideal."

"An ideal? Besides that Skyrim is for the Nords?"

"That's…" Thorald winced.

"Ulfric was a pawn," Idolaf spat. "I can't believe how much support he managed to rally. He was a Nord supremacist, but more than that, Thorald, he was a pawn of the Thalmor. They're the reason his rebellion took off."

"And the Talos worship?"

"From what I'm told, it wasn't a problem until he started stirring up trouble. Before that, the Empire was all right just not enforcing it. And then your family started…"

Thorald remained silent.

Idolaf sighed. "Thorald… I had to break you out of there. They were going to leave the fort anyway. They probably would've killed you."

"Then I should have died. Why would you save me?" The Gray-Mane's question came as more of a demand.

"Why wouldn't I? Truly," said the Battle-Born. "I remember a time when our houses were unbreakable allies. When you and I were childhood friends. How could we ever split apart?"

Thorald's voice suddenly raised. "Because you and your family turned on us! Because you would rather bow to the Empire than-"

"No." Idolaf spoke quietly. His friend fell silent. "Because we're weaker apart than together. And our enemies know that. You think no more public Talos worship is a reason to break an ancient bond like our families'?"

"No more public Talos worship?"

"That's right."

"What about that fellow who's always standing around in the Wind District?" Thorald put on a theatrical, pleading voice. "We are but maggots! Writhing in the filth of mortality! But Talos rose from the dung!"

Idolaf snorted with laughter. After a few seconds, Thorald started laughing too. It was no wonder the Thalmor never bothered to stop that man. He'd just help make Talos worship look insane.

"I think the White-Gold Concordat's been thrown out, actually," Idolaf said when they were done. "We could probably worship Talos all we want."

"Aye," Thorald nodded. "But at what cost? I don't mean to offend you, Idolaf, but you were on the side of that ban, no? And now you're saying we're free to do as we please."

"You're wondering what's the catch? Figures. Well, it's nothing big, we're just going to be at war with the Aldmeri Dominion pretty soon, and I thought maybe…"

"_What?!_"

"Oh, look, it's Solitude."

Sure enough, the city gates were just ahead. At some point, they'd merged onto the cobblestones of the main road, and now it was a straight line. Even from afar, Thorald admired the Nord masonry of the gatehouse. Dark, elegantly carved stone bricks. If it were a bit more snowy and gray here, it could have belonged to Windhelm.

Idolaf swung off his horse and started leading it on foot. "Take off your robes, Thorald. The guards won't take kindly to a man in a Thalmor uniform."

The Nord was only too happy to comply. He tossed the robe off into the trees as he dismounted. Now he was in prisoner's clothing and a pair of odd elven-looking boots, and carrying an obviously elven sword tucked into his shoddy rope belt. Quite an improvement.

Idolaf strode forward to the guards at the gate. They didn't get a chance to comment on his strange follower. "Take these horses to the stables," Idolaf said. "I need to bring this man to General Tullius immediately."

"Yes, sir." One of the two guards led the horses away. The other stood out of the way respectfully as Idolaf and Thorald passed by.

The streets of Solitude were noisy and bustling with the noon crowd. Thorald didn't remember the last time he'd seen this many people. He followed close behind Idolaf. They were getting strange looks. Perhaps the passersby were wondering why Thorald's hands weren't bound. Good question, really.

Castle Dour was at the top of some switchback stairs, past a forge and through a gate. A few men were practicing archery in the main courtyard. They paid him no mind.

The doors to the castle interior were flanked by four guards in full armor. Thorald expected trouble, but Idolaf simply waved to them in greetings and held the door open for him.

It was very gloomy inside Castle Dour. Barely any light made it in through the windows. The ceiling was high, the stone was almost black, the torches helped none. Thorald squinted as his eyes adjusted to the low light. This room was mostly empty. "Where's your general?"

Idolaf gestured to an open arch at the end of the room. On the other side, there was a much smaller room, with two figures in Imperial uniform, standing over a table, murmuring to each other in low voices. One was in full plate armor. The other was more lightly protected, helmetless, tanned Imperial skin, short gray hair… Was that him? Thorald had never seen General Tullius before.

"General!" Idolaf stepped forward, beckoning for Thorald to follow, without looking back. "May I have a moment?"

Tullius leaned back from the table and stood upright with a sigh. Just looking at him made Thorald understand why he would end up giving orders. "Certainly, soldier," he answered in a gruff but affable voice. That made sense too. "What is it?"

"Sir, do you remember writing a letter concerning a Thorald Gray-Mane? Captive of the Thalmor."

The Imperial peered past Idolaf and narrowed his eyes. "What is he doing in my castle? Who are you, anyway?"

"Legionary Idolaf Battle-Born, thought you might be interested, sir," Idolaf shrugged. "He spent a year in Thalmor custody. I broke him out when I heard what happened in Windhelm."

"I'd subject you to Imperial court-martial, but at this point I don't think it would matter," Tullius grumbled. "You there. Thorald. Why have you come here?"

Thorald swallowed. He didn't have an answer ready. He'd thought Idolaf would do the talking for him. There was no time to think. He just blurted out the first answer that came into his head. "I want to fight for you!"

Idolaf turned around and stared at him. The armored figure across from Tullius stared too. Thorald instantly regretted his words. "I… I mean, I…"

"You mean you've come here to join the Legion?" the armored figure piped up. Thorald realized the figure was a woman.

"I- I just wanted to help you fight against those that were holding me captive."

Tullius returned his focus to Idolaf. "Legionary, make yourself at home."

"Thank you, sir." Idolaf nodded, glanced back at Thorald once more, and headed off down a staircase to the side.

Thorald suddenly felt painfully out of place. A castle full of well-kept, disciplined Legionnaires, and he was an unwashed prisoner with a stolen sword and odd boots.

Tullius paused for a few long seconds. "You were in the custody of the Thalmor," he said quietly.

"That's correct, General." Thorald Gray-Mane still couldn't believe he was speaking to _the_ General Tullius.

"I see." Another pause. "Go down where your friend Idolaf went, clean yourself up, and then we'll talk."

Twenty minutes later, Thorald was wearing a spare off-duty outfit, looking quite a bit cleaner, his thirst quenched and hunger sated. Tullius had requested his private audience in that room with the big table. That woman in the armor was gone.

It turned out that the table had a giant map of Skyrim on it, complete with little flags on Imperial bases. A couple of wooden chairs stood in the back of the room. Thorald was certain they hadn't been there before.

In any case, Tullius took a seat, and invited the Nord to sit with him. How could he decline? He sat down with this near-mythical general and waited for his verdict.

"It was very kind of Idolaf to extract you," Tullius said. His indoor voice was surprisingly gentle. "Did he do that by himself?"

"Yes, sir," Thorald nodded stiffly.

"Don't call me sir, Gray-Mane, you're not a Legionnaire." That was a little sharper, but Tullius quickly softened his tone again. "That was very brave of him. Some formal commendation may be in order, depending on how things go."

"What things?"

"You were imprisoned for close to a year." That was sidestepping the question. "I can only imagine what the Thalmor tried to do to you."

"Is that so?" The Nord tried not to scowl.

"In the Thalmor dossier on Ulfric Stormcloak, there was an informative description of his capture and interrogation, during the Great War. The Thalmor tried to break him, compromise his will to resist. And by their accounts, they succeeded. He was theirs to use."

So he hadn't sidestepped the question after all. "I can assure you, Tullius, they did not break me. They tried, every day. They wanted me to admit that I supported the Stormcloaks, nothing more."

"_Did_ you support the Stormcloaks?"

Thorald didn't like that use of the past tense. Or that question at all. "… Yes. But I never said so."

"Well, fortunately, all Stormcloak soldiers have been granted amnesty on the condition that they cease their rebellion. Which brings me to the next point. You mentioned you wanted to fight for us, am I right?"

"I'm, I'm not sure why I said that," Thorald chuckled nervously. "The elves might have broken the Jarl of Windhelm, but they didn't break me. And Idolaf… Idolaf killed my interrogator and his escort, and dragged me out of there, on his own. I couldn't repay him by hiding."

"So you'll fight for the Empire?"

"If that's what I must do, then yes."

"Very well, Thorald. Before we proceed, there is an oath all Legionnaires must take to serve the Emperor. Repeat after me—"

"Hey-ey-ey, no, no!" Thorald raised his hands suddenly. "I didn't agree to fight for the Emperor. That's not why I'm here."

Tullius didn't look pleased. "This is basic procedure. If you're not fighting for the Emperor, how can you be fighting for us?"

"I supported the Stormcloaks because I wanted the best for Skyrim's people. I still do. Don't you want that?"

"Of course."

"Then our causes already match. I can't blindly pledge myself to an Emperor I've never even met."

"Thorald, it's merely a part of being in the Legion's chain of command. It's a formality we all defer to."

"You Imperials and your bloody sense of honor."

Tullius' eye twitched.

Thorald continued. "Can't I fight for you without having to… To jump through all those hoops? I can see how the Empire and the Nords have trouble."

"You were a prisoner of the Thalmor for a year as they tried to break your will, you supported the Stormcloaks, and you refuse to take an oath of service to the Empire." Tullius didn't sound particularly irritated, considering. "You must be aware of how that looks."

"May I ask you something, Tullius?"

"Certainly."

"Why are you even talking to me?" Thorald leaned forward onto his elbows. "I'm just one man, likely more trouble than he's worth, but I'm sitting here, sitting, taking up the valuable time of an Imperial general while a war with the Dominion is on the horizon. Why?"

"Good question." Tullius actually smirked. "If you're as strong-willed as you say you are, you could serve the Empire well enough to deserve my personal attention. So I ask you this, Thorald. How far are you willing to go?"

"In order to serve the Empire? If Skyrim truly is part of the Empire, then… I suppose I would do anything I might to serve Skyrim." Thorald shrugged and brushed a lock of hair out of his eyes. "And that would be… Anything. Fight, kill, die, whatever it took to protect our people."

"Spoken not terribly unlike a Legionnaire," Tullius murmured.

"Is that enough for you?"

"If you haven't taken the oath, then I can't formally admit you to the Legion. You won't receive a standard salary, and officially, you'll be unaffiliated with us. But you're a special case, Thorald. I'm no longer inclined to make you a rank-and-file Legionary."

"Well, if you want someone who can take over entire forts by himself, you should talk to Idolaf, not me."

"Come." Tullius stood up and strode over to the table. Thorald had little choice but to follow.

The general stood at the west end of the table, where Skyrim bordered Hammerfell and High Rock. "The Thalmor will attack from here. Our men in the Reach have intercepted dozens of Justiciars fleeing west through the highlands. Their rendezvous point, most likely, is somewhere in High Rock. They'd be fools to go to Hammerfell."

"I hope you're fortifying Markarth, then," Thorald offered. He was no strategist.

"You want to fight for us without… 'Jumping through hoops' that don't matter to you," Tullius said, ignoring Thorald's comment. "So I have an alternative proposition. You jump through hoops that _do_ matter to you."

"What are you proposing, Tullius?"

"Very shortly, I will be assigning you to a mission. There will be no written record of this mission, and frankly, I'd rather you not speak about it with anyone. I've no doubt the Thalmor have at least one spy in Castle Dour."

"What are the… Details of this mission?"

"We'll find out soon enough." Tullius gave Thorald an indifferent look. "Relax, go join Idolaf. Divines know you could use some free time."

Thorald frowned. This wasn't what he'd had in mind when he agreed to fight. But still, it was for the good of Skyrim. He couldn't say no to the ideal. "Very well."

Tullius nodded and stepped back. Thorald started to turn away, to exit the room, but suddenly turned back, one hand raised.

"One more thing," he said. "Why didn't you rescue me?"

"What?"

"I know it's an odd question, but… You knew the Thalmor had taken me prisoner. You didn't do anything about it. Why not?"

Tullius' face hardened. "Did anyone ever tell you why the Empire had to prohibit the worship of Talos? It didn't happen with the signing of the White-Gold Concordat. No, it happened when Ulfric Stormcloak started making noise."

"Idolaf said the same thing."

"We've been at the Thalmor's mercy, Thorald. Ulfric made a problem of it, the Thalmor started leaning on us, and we had to enforce the ban. We had Justiciars worming their way into everything we did. If I'd ordered you freed, they might not have even listened."

Thorald sighed. He must have known that would be the answer, even before he asked. "And now? Are we still at the Thalmor's mercy?"

"Now, the Thalmor have no more mercy for us left."


	8. Noster 2

Loredas, 4:14 PM, 29th of Sun's Dusk, 4E 201

Whiterun

It took several days to travel to Whiterun. Iseus had left Noster the moment they returned to Riverwood – business in Riften, or something of the sort. There was no stable in such a small village, so Noster had to travel to Whiterun on foot.

Back in Solitude, the Dragonborn had procured a few changes of clothing for Noster to wear, including a new Imperial scout's uniform. Noster was no longer in active service. Formally, he'd never even retired, but he imagined that being left for dead and limping across half of Tamriel alone was adequate proof of his situation. But the Nord veteran's uniform meant that when he reached the gates of Whiterun, the guards opened them up for him without asking any questions.

Whiterun was divided into three districts. The lowest – in altitude, Whiterun was on a great big hill – was the Plains District. Most of the shops were down here. As Noster entered through the gates, a woman started talking just to his right.

"I don't claim to be the best Blacksmith in Whiterun. Eorlund Gray-Mane's got that honor."

"Hm?" Noster turned to look. He wasn't used to just being conversed with at random like that. The woman was standing in front of an outdoor forge, talking to a big guy in shabby iron armor. Looked like he could do to buy some of her wares.

She continued without noticing him. "Man's steel is legendary. All I ask is a fair chance."

Noster had moved on before he could hear any more. Which said something, itself. He'd lost the keenness of his vision back in Anvil, certainly, but his hearing was as sharp as it'd ever been. Whiterun was just too noisy.

According to Proventus Avenicci, the Steward of Whiterun, this city had existed for thousands of years, and one of the buildings, the Companions' headquarters, stood even before Dragonsreach was an idea. And the last time that Noster had visited Whiterun, which was a few weeks ago but might as well have been in another era, he'd had the privilege of seeing these buildings firsthand. Now he was here a second time, and the novelty had largely worn off. He passed right by the Companions' building without even really looking.

Dragonsreach was where it always was, at the top of an infuriatingly long series of staircases. Proventus had said that the city's keep was so named because it had the facilities to actually imprison a dragon. Not a month before, the Dragonborn had used this prison to… Do strange things. Noster didn't recall the details. He wasn't here for dragons.

Inside Dragonsreach was a pleasantly spacious great hall, mostly wood, even the pillars were made of wood, high vaulted ceiling. Lots of natural light. Noster automatically scanned the room as he walked through it. Someone was already in front of the Jarl at the far end of the hall, a few people were sitting at the two long tables, no one seemed to notice another man in uniform strolling through.

"… protect your people, but there may not be a line to hold." Someone's voice.

"I understand. Thank you for your concern, Quentin." The Jarl's voice.

The person addressing the Jarl was in uniform himself. Imperial armor, by the looks of things. Once he was close enough to see the officer clearly, Noster recognized the markings of a Legate.

"I'll be upstairs," the Legate said. That would be the someone, then. He turned and headed off to an unobtrusive staircase in the corner of the hall, leaving Noster standing there alone.

"Oh, were you with…?" Jarl Balgruuf sat up in his throne and squinted at the man dressed as an Imperial scout. "Noster? Is that you?"

Noster removed his helmet. His bald head felt awfully naked, but he didn't like this thing very much. His old one from the Great War had been much nicer. "Jarl Balgruuf," he said respectfully. "I must speak to you. In private, I mean."

"Certainly." The Jarl carefully lifted himself out of his seat and adjusted his robes. "Irileth," he said to the armored Dunmer woman standing guard, "stay here."

"Yes, my lord," Irileth answered impassively.

And so Jarl Balgruuf led Noster up that staircase in the corner. Honestly, Noster didn't mind the stairs that much. After that trek up the Throat of the World, he doubted there was any climb he couldn't make.

A set of doors, more stairs, more doors … Honestly, Dragonsreach's prison might have just consisted of letting a dragon get lost in here. But eventually, they were standing in a respectable bedroom behind closed doors. Noster stood uncomfortably.

Balgruuf pulled up a chair and gestured for Noster to sit on the edge of the bed. "Please, have a seat. Relax. This room is magically warded. Eavesdroppers will have no luck here."

An involuntary sigh of relief as he sat down. Noster hadn't realized how worn out he had been. He'd walked from the crack of dawn all the way to Whiterun without stopping to rest. It felt good, honestly. Like being a scout again. But now he had un-scout-like things to attend to.

"I've come with a request from the Dragonborn," Noster said before the Jarl could ask what he was there for. "It's… A little complicated."

"I hope you've memorized it well," Balgruuf smiled. "Please, go on."

"Iseus needs … Food. Provisions, really. He's asked you to fill a few wagons with food that will keep well, so… I don't know, salted pork, hard tack biscuits, that sort of thing. And to take them to the… Nightgate Inn. I believe that's in Eastmarch." The Nord veteran nodded. "That's it. Oh, and he asked you to wait a week before sending it off."

The Jarl made a facial expression that implied a shrug. "That sounds possible enough."

"Obviously, this needs to be secret, so… I'd recommend recording it as a shipment to an Imperial camp, and telling the men involved that it's just a routine supply drop-off. It's just food."

"Wise advice. I can see why the Dragonborn chose you to aid him."

"He's a good man, Iseus. He's turned my life around, single-handedly." Now Noster was the one smiling. "He's wanted to know everything about me. I honestly don't know much about him, though, truly."

"Well, I wouldn't feel bad, no one seems to," the Jarl said. "You must have heard the rumors about what happened here last month."

Noster frowned and lowered his brow inquisitively.

"The Dragonborn came here wanting to summon a dragon. Right to the Great Porch out back, I jest not. I had to refuse. He said it was to defeat Alduin somehow, but the war was still threatening Whiterun, we couldn't endanger ourselves. But… Well, he was very persuasive. He promised to stay with us for as long as the dragon was, and kill it if it misbehaved. That seemed reasonable. So we captured his dragon, they exchanged words, all was going according to plan. And then the Dragonborn asked us to release the dragon we'd just caught. We did, and it worked, and our world was saved."

"So the moral of the tale is, do not question the Dragonborn, for he knows what to do?"

"A shipment of food is hardly a sacrifice in comparison."

Noster paused. It occurred to him that he'd never asked about what happened with the Civil War. "Do you know anything about how he stopped the Stormcloak Rebellion? Because I don't."

"I… I have only rumors to go off of, Noster, but I will tell you what I know, if you wish. Truly, you'd be best off asking him yourself."

"Your version of events, then." Noster couldn't help himself. He was a scout. He gathered information. That was what he did.

"The Dragonborn journeyed east, to Windhelm, where Ulfric Stormcloak was planning his next move."

_That leg of the journey had been… Peculiar, to say the least. The Dragonborn didn't say what he was doing, but he left Noster in town and just headed off without him._

"He entered the Palace of the Kings by himself, and challenged Ulfric to a duel of honor, supposedly the same way that Ulfric had with the late High King."

Noster snorted incredulously. "Who would agree to a duel with the Dragonborn? That's suicide."

"How could a man like him refuse? His honor was on the line. Besides, I imagine that he might not have even recognized the Dragonborn for who he was, until it was too late. He consented to the duel, of course, but… He'd hardly made it out of his seat before the Dragonborn hit him with a shout.

"And before he could recover, the Dragonborn had beheaded him, on the steps to his own throne. That was that, really. The rest, I don't need to rely on rumors for. I received a sealed message from General Tullius the day after. The contents were fascinating, I'm told every Jarl received one. There was an ultimatum to the Stormcloaks, for one thing. But for another, there was a copy of the Thalmor dossier on Ulfric Stormcloak. I suspect the Dragonborn retrieved it during the raid on the embassy."

This was too much to absorb. That was what the Dragonborn had been doing while Noster was twiddling his thumbs in Whiterun? How could he have been kept in the dark about this? Iseus must have known that he would find out, eventually. He swallowed and did his best to remain in the moment. "I'm afraid I haven't read that dossier."

"Oh, it's an enlightening read. It would seem that the Thalmor were responsible for the Civil War's entire existence, all in all. You may have noticed that the public climate has always been… Rather cold, towards the Thalmor. Even in Solitude, I imagine. But now?"

A knowing grin was slowly beginning to form on Noster's face. That was why the Dragonborn had visited Solitude that day they'd met. He was handing the dossier over to Tullius, telling him what was about to happen. Noster wondered if he'd actually stayed and helped draft the ultimatum to the Stormcloaks. It sounded like it had worked, at least.

The ex-scout must not have been part of the Dragonborn's original plan. They'd encountered one another by total happenstance, for one thing. But if he hadn't been tagging along, it didn't seem sensible for Iseus to stop in Whiterun if his destination were Windhelm. That wasn't much of a straight line.

Which lead Noster to another line of thinking: He must have meant a great deal to Iseus, for him to literally go so far out of his way on the Nord's behalf. Why? He couldn't even keep track of the constant interview the Dragonborn had been putting him through. That man was just full of questions for him, and apparently, he was seeing something in Noster besides an old veteran who'd run out of luck long ago.

"I may be in Whiterun for a while yet," Noster eventually said. "I'll be leaving along with that shipment, so I have a week. I may want to make some use of your training facilities. My sword arm hasn't had a good swing in… Well, for longer than I'd like to remember."

"We should spar someday," the Jarl said mirthfully. "Two old men, out of practice, whacking away at each other. The bards would be singing about it for years to come."

Noster put a hand over his mouth and tried not to laugh too hard. "Whose reputation do you think we'd ruin more, the leadership of Whiterun or the Imperial Legion?"

The Jarl was laughing too. He slowly pushed himself up from his seat and offered Noster a hand. The veteran took it, because it might be rude not to, and they stood for a moment, regarding each other.

"Iseus will get his provisions," Balgruuf said, more soberly. "It's the least we can do for him."

"Thank you, then, on his behalf."

"You do understand what it means now that you're in his… Company, Noster."

"Come again?"

The Jarl sighed and headed over for the door. As he laid his hand on the handle, he stopped and looked down. "The Stormcloak Rebellion is over, but I fear the coming weeks will challenge us all, in ways the civil war did not prepare us for. Whatever the Dragonborn has planned to meet this challenge, you will be at his side."

An eerie chill crept through Noster's chest. It felt wrong. He had faced war before, and he had survived. And … now another war was on its way. Noster's face darkened. He remembered what it was like during the Great War, how he felt before every mission he was sent on. Like he had hours to live. Like his scouting run would most likely be a one-way trip. Whatever this feeling was, it was worse.

"I will do my best," he said. "I suppose it's up to the Dragonborn whether that's good enough."

Jarl Balgruuf opened the door. It was time to face the world. Noster was still learning just what that meant.


	9. J'zargo 2

Morndas, 11:44 AM, 16th of Evening Star, 4E 201

Great Lift at Alftand

J'zargo could not make up his mind about the Dragonborn's taste in character. They stood together atop a howling mountainside, ice whipping every which way, nowhere near any sort of living civilization. But they stood in front of a stone structure, which J'zargo wished to say was obviously man-made. But it was not obviously made by men. It was obviously made by dwarves. Or so they were often called. The long-extinct Dwemer, whose artifacts and ruins still outperformed the knowledge of the Fourth Era, were actually elves.

This stone structure bore a massive roof over four thick stone columns, and that was all. It did not even have proper walls, merely bars of metal filling the gaps. The whole thing was barely large enough to be a proper building – but still, it showed the craftsmanship of the deep elves well enough. The bars were closely spaced and made of the golden metal that the Dwemer used for everything. The stone was beautifully carved, and impressively robust. None of this mattered truly, however. As he understood it, this structure was the tip of an iceberg beyond comprehension.

And whom was he sharing this experience with? Who stood with him on this mountain, in front of a standing remnant of a forgotten age? An aging man who had once served as a pair of eyes, a petty thief who belonged in some seedy back alley, and the Dragonborn himself. J'zargo had to remember that the Dragonborn had chosen _him_ as well. That must have meant something.

Two minutes ago, the Dragonborn had pressed an ornate golden button on one of the columns. Now he stood silently, like a statue, in front of one of the barred walls. J'zargo was no archaeologist, or even a native of Skyrim, but it had occurred to him that the Dragonborn's armor was made of the same metal as these Dwemer devices. He walked up to the Dragonborn's side and addressed him in hushed tones.

"Dragonborn. Is this place where you acquired your armor?" Standing so close to the wall, J'zargo realized that there was no floor beneath the stone roof. There was a perfectly smooth circular hole in the earth, descending past his field of vision.

"That's a good question. The answer is… Sort of." The Dragonborn didn't turn to look at the Khajiit but he seemed to appreciate the interest. J'zargo made a note to hold his tongue less often. "It wasn't this exact place, but another ruin nearby. Also I didn't actually find this armor. I got a bunch of scrap metal, melted it down, forged it myself."

The Khajiit winced almost imperceptibly. Of course the Dragonborn didn't simply find his armor in this place. What were the odds that he would locate a suit that fit him? It wouldn't have even been built for a figure of the same race. "I did not know you were a smith," he admitted. Time to act unassuming, he supposed.

"It comes in handy," the Dragonborn answered without revealing more. However, he did reach over his shoulder and tap the weapon slung on his back.

J'zargo leaned to take a look at it, even though he already knew what it was. A war hammer, curiously enough. Fairly plain in build, but made of the same metal as the armor. The apprentice mage noted that the Dragonborn also bore a sword on his hip. It was difficult not to dismiss the Dragonborn's ways as crude and primitive. The limitless expanse of magic, and he limited himself to swinging pieces of metal? Why?

He did not have time to rephrase his idea in a more diplomatic way. His ears flicked beneath his hood at the sound of a distant mechanical grinding. It was coming from that bottomless pit, and it steadily grew louder. Soon, the others had heard as well. Soon after _that_, the pit was no longer bottomless. A stone-like gray platform rose into view, gears along the edges turning over metal teeth set into the walls. It actually passed above the floor, supported by another, inner layer of vertical bars—and rose to the height of the ceiling, revealing a second platform beneath, this one flush with the floor. The wall of bars split and swung open on unoiled hinges. They were free to enter.

The Dragonborn was the first to step inside. This platform was very plain. The only notable feature was a large lever set in the middle of the floor. Its arm stood straight up. J'zargo immediately followed. The two others were less eager.

One of them, the petty thief, spoke up. "Are you sure this is safe, lad?" His accent was difficult to place. It was certainly very Nordic.

The Dragonborn said, "I've already used it, if that's what you mean. Come on, Brynjolf, you agreed to fight the Thalmor, there's no way this is more dangerous."

The thief, Brynjolf, reluctantly entered the chamber. After him, the other Nord, the one in the uniform of the Legion, followed inside. The moment they had all entered, the Dragonborn pushed on the lever with his heel. It didn't budge.

A few seconds of uncomfortable silence passed. The Dragonborn suddenly tried to snap his fingers, but the metal of his gauntlet made it impossible. "Right. It goes the other way." Then he leaned down and pulled the lever back towards him.

First, the doors swung shut of their own accord. Then the platform lurched and dropped. The grinding sound was all around them. J'zargo almost lost his footing. The ground outside the inner layer of bars was rising, quickly. It passed by his eyes, up to the ceiling… And then there was no more daylight.

The Khajiit needed only a split second to adjust to darkness, but there was none. A light fixed to the ceiling flooded the chamber with almost painful brightness. The four men cast stark shadows on the walls. They were still moving downwards, he could tell. That grinding noise persisted, and beyond the metal bars, he could see the rough striations of stone walls shooting upward.

They stood in awkward silence for a minute or so. J'zargo spent it observing his surroundings. This chamber smelled strange. Whatever it was that exotic, ancient machinery smelled like. He wondered if this would eventually be a scent to remind him of his days of early apprenticeship.

The Dragonborn removed his helmet. This was a surprise. The Khajiit had not seen his face before. By the accent of his voice, he had assumed the Dragonborn was a Nord, but his skin was far too dark, more like an Imperial's. He had also assumed the Dragonborn would be an older man. Not so. They were likely close to the same age. It occurred to J'zargo that he knew essentially nothing about this man.

"Hey… Iseus," the uniformed Nord said, loudly, over the sound of the gears working. "How did you find this place?"

The Dragonborn … Iseus, that was something J'zargo needed to remember, his actual name … cracked a smile and shook his head once. "Paarthurnax needed me to fetch him an Elder Scroll, and the only one in Skyrim we know about was in the Tower of Mzark."

"An Elder Scroll?" the two Nords said at the same time.

Iseus shrugged. "I didn't have much use for it. Wouldn't help anyone if I went insane trying to read the damn thing."

"What… Where is it now?" Brynjolf asked incredulously.

"Someplace safe." The Dragonborn gave Brynjolf a look that probably said he should have known better than to ask.

J'zargo spoke. "What would the Dwemer have done with an Elder Scroll, then?"

"Oh, I found it inside a machine of theirs that reflects the text and pictures and stuff from the scroll onto a wall or something. It's supposed to prevent you from going blind by looking at it, so I guess they built that to read it with."

"Someone should notify the Moth Priests," the uniformed Nord said.

"If you can find them, and convince them to relocate to an old underground ruin, Noster, be my guest," Iseus smirked.

J'zargo had to remember that too. When they had all met for the first time, the Dragonborn had introduced them all to one another by name, but, foolish as he was, the apprentice's mind had been on other things. He had been going this whole time trying not to have to address the two Nords, because he wished not to embarrass himself. The thief was named Brynjolf, and the veteran was named Noster. Excellent.

"We'll be arriving soon." Iseus sighed and fitted his helmet back on. It was a peculiar thing. It masked his entire face with a plain visor, and seemed to be made with an incredibly robust philosophy of design – all thick ridges and thicker plates, but still articulate. If J'zargo were to encumber himself with a suit of armor, if agility were no concern of his, he would wish for it to be like the Dragonborn's.

J'zargo suddenly felt much heavier for a moment. He realized the platform was slowing down. It stopped with a lurching clunk. The lever on the floor sprung back to the neutral position by itself. The Khajiit turned around to face the doors just as they opened, and before him lay the entrance to another world.

There was a cavern. It was larger than anything J'zargo had seen in his life. The stone walls, vaulting up to an impossibly high ceiling, were unnaturally dark, but twinkled with tiny lights like the night sky. It was impossible to judge the true size of this place, for it was filled with a hazy turquoise fog, which made everything past half a mile or so indistinct. There were fluorescent rocks and Dwemer lights everywhere, but in the distance, J'zargo could make out the forms of what seemed to be giant mushrooms, black in some places, metallic cyan in others, glowing brilliantly and filling the cavern with their light.

J'zargo was immediately met with a wave of humid heat. It smelled even more alien than the inside of the vertical shaft, and far more… Alive. He could not describe it. In the far distance, he could hear a faint rushing, like a gigantic waterfall from a mile away.

The vertical-bar doors opened onto a modest stone platform, adorned with a waist-high metal block of pipes and gears. On either side were stairs down to a natural earthy floor. Truly, the floor seemed to be made of actual soil, this far underground, besides where stone paths had been laid down. He stepped out into the open without noticing. In this expanse, he felt no larger than one of those pinpricks of light glittering on the ceiling.

"Welcome to Blackreach," the Dragonborn's voice said from someplace behind him. "This is our stronghold now."

As he scanned the cavern more closely, J'zargo noticed the distant shapes of buildings. Some were built into the walls, some were freely standing. Some were small, some were large. All of them were built with the solid stone walls of Dwemer make. This place had been a city, once. "By the Twin Moons," he breathed. "This place is limitless!"

"Close enough," the Dragonborn's voice replied with a hint of amusement. "This isn't the only entrance. Alftand is in Winterhold, but I've also found exits that lead up to the Pale and Hjaalmarch."

"Three different holds?" This was Brynjolf's voice. "This place must be hundreds of miles wide!"

"You may be right." The Dragonborn again. "Most of it is just featureless rock, but I've searched the rest as best I can. Be on your guard. The Falmer have lived down here, and I may not have found all of the Dwemer automatons."

The Dwemer themselves had been extinct for centuries, J'zargo knew. They were survived by their sightless slave race, and by their mechanical sentries. He knew nothing more than that.

J'zargo began to step down from the stone platform, but as he did, he heard something. A faint ringing, coming from his left. He warily stepped in that direction, and found… A nirnroot. One of that rare species of magical plant, little more than a few jagged leaves sprouting right from the earth, tucked in against the side of the stairs. It cast a bright light around it without glowing, and made an eerie ringing noise without vibrating. This did not surprise J'zargo, for he had seen nirnroots before. But this one was red. The leaves were colored a deep, bright shade of blood red, instead of their natural pale green.

"Iseus," he said uneasily. "What is this?"

"Oh, did you find the crimson nirnroot?" The Dragonborn walked up beside J'zargo and pointed so the others could see. "They're all over the place down here. They've evolved to need nothing more than the nutrients in the soil, I think. I tried replanting some myself, we'll have to find them again."

Noster joined them and gave Iseus a quizzical look. "Why did you replant them?"

"Well, because I took some with me, to experiment with," the Dragonborn shrugged. "And I wanted to see if they were any easier to cultivate than the regular kind. It turns out they're alchemically identical. Anything a nirnroot can do, a crimson nirnroot can do as well."

"Good, uh, good to know," Noster said, not even trying to conceal his ignorance.

The Dragonborn moved on, stepping out onto the stone path and beckoning over his shoulder for the others to follow. "I've brought you three down here because you're all going to be at the forefront of what I'm doing. Noster, J'zargo, you two are probably going to be spending a lot of time down here. Brynjolf… I have no idea what you'll be up to, but I want you to see this anyway."

"I'm honored," Brynjolf muttered.

The doorway they'd entered through seemed to be at a sort of corner in the cavern. The Dragonborn bore right, heading towards a pair of structures that lay surprisingly close by. One was built into the wall. A much larger, higher raised platform, and a doorway to… Someplace. The other was, by Dwemer standards, little more than a shed. Sturdy stone walls, sturdy golden doors, but they just made for a long, narrow box of a building, just across the path from the platform.

"What does that door go to?" Noster pointed to the great platform on the right.

"Alftand," the Dragonborn remarked. "It's the ruin I came down through to get here. J'zargo, that's where I originally got the metal for this armor. And this little building is… Well, I dunno what it originally was, but I think it was being used as a sort of laboratory—"

He suddenly stopped and held his arm out to the side, palm downward, in an obvious 'wait' gesture. J'zargo obediently froze in his tracks. "Dwarven sphere," the Dragonborn said quietly, "just in front of the lab. See it?"

J'zargo peered at the laboratory's front door. Not five feet away from it, a ball of beautifully fitted metal plates, about the size of a curled-up person, was twitching mechanically and releasing tiny puffs of steam. This must have been one of the automatons the Dwemer had left behind.

"I destroyed one out here on my last visit. It must have been replaced." The Dragonborn was sinking into a fighting stance, and slowly drawing forth the massive war hammer on his back. "Stay here."

What happened next, J'zargo would remember for the rest of his days. The Dragonborn did not bother with stealth. He walked in the sphere's direction with the easy confidence of a tradesman heading to work. After perhaps ten paces, the sphere detected him, and unfolded—this part absolutely baffled the Khajiit—into a figure with arms and half-legs. It rolled on the remainder of its outer shell towards the intruder alarmingly quickly. J'zargo realized that instead of hands, this automaton's arms ended with rugged metal weaponry.

But the sphere never got the chance to use any of them. The Dragonborn hefted his hammer, twirled it once in his hands. Just as the automaton got just close enough to take a lunge at him, he brought the hammer around in an unstoppable uppercut. There was an earsplitting metallic _WHAM_ as the hammer's head smashed straight through the sphere's upper body. Pieces of automaton flew out in the direction of the swing. There was nothing left intact enough to even move. The sphere-shell rolled to a halt right in front of the Dragonborn's metal boots.

And just like that, the Dragonborn stowed his weapon and turned back to the others. "I think we're fine. Stay on your guard, though, there could be more."

J'zargo fell in line silently, grinning to himself. He thought he could understand why this man preferred his tactic of swinging pieces of metal around.

Brynjolf walked up to the remains of the sphere and lifted up one of the smaller curved plates. "This is good dwarven metal," he said. "If it weren't all mangled, it'd fetch a handsome price, I reckon."

"If you want me to melt it down into a sword for you, I will," the Dragonborn said mirthfully. He was already back to walking.

Noster had caught up with them by now. "Iseus!" He stopped by the sphere to have a closer look at it, then continued. "Where are we going?"

"Oh, now that we're here? I thought we might take a look at where you'll be working."

Over the next half hour, J'zargo learned many things about Blackreach. The Dragonborn, in his explorations, had located four main areas that had been built in. Three were at the mouths of Dwemer ruins that could be accessed by the surface. Alftand, Mzinchaleft and Raldbthar, if he recalled correctly. These elves had been excellent in many fields, but perhaps not in the field of naming things.

In any case, these three sites featured Great Lifts which allowed for direct travel aboveground. The fourth area was a central sort of hub, and hosted the Tower of Mzark, where the Dragonborn had found his Elder Scroll. This area also featured an exit to the surface, though it was less direct, as one had to transfer platforms by passing through the oculory. The Elder Scroll storage room, as J'zargo understood it.

The Dragonborn seemed uninterested in showing them the other sites. Apparently, it would involve either many hours of walking, or riding on some sort of shuttle machine. So they remained in the Alftand corner of the cavern, and toured the local buildings.

There were derelict Dwemer houses, strange giant glowing mushrooms, strange crimson nirnroots, strange white rocks which glowed with internal purplish-blue light, and veins of ore which the Dragonborn said could actually be harvested for soul gems. There were also wrecked remains of other automatons. The Dragonborn had taken credit for most of them, of course.

In the end, though, the four of them ended up circling around to the laboratory. It felt larger on the inside than it had looked on the outside, which was odd, because inside it was quite cluttered. It was obvious someone had lived here recently. There was regular wooden furniture, cookware, books on shelves, and, on one end of the narrow chamber, equipment to practice alchemy. J'zargo had gone straight to this area.

Noster flipped idly through one of the books. "Are you sure we can't just get back out there? I'd like to see more."

"Not until I find out where that sphere came from," the Dragonborn said while standing over J'zargo's shoulder. His helmet was across the room from him, on the dining table. "I'm not letting you just wander around by yourselves."

This laboratory, the Dragonborn had said, had once belonged to a man named Sinderion, who had wished to learn about the properties of the crimson nirnroot. When he'd arrived, Sinderion's skeleton was still on the floor. Something about that was deeply exciting to J'zargo. To think, he'd thought the College of Winterhold had been an ultimate frontier.

The Dragonborn had graciously raided the shelves and given J'zargo a few ingredients he knew worked well together. The recipe of the day involved a crimson nirnroot and a chaurus egg. J'zargo would have dismissed it as idiotic if he hadn't tried the Dragonborn's ways of alchemy for himself. Now, sitting at this stone countertop with two ingredients he had never seen before, he wondered if he should dismiss himself as idiotic instead.

He was simply grinding them together in a mortar and pestle, nothing more. The Dragonborn had said that this part required the most care, especially with the nirnroot. They paste it reduced to did not look like something J'zargo would wish to put inside his body.

"J'zargo is not certain he is following your directions correctly," he said with obvious unease.

Fortunately, the Dragonborn still stood right there above him, watching. "You're doing fine. I think you're actually ready to put that in the alembic."

There was a glass bottle of sorts, over a low flame. Its neck bent downwards to the center of the lab table. Excellent for distillation, J'zargo supposed. But really, could he focus on these technicalities? He was deep underground, in a field laboratory in a forgotten Dwemer ruin, learning alchemy from the Dragonborn himself. It was not easy to get over this fact.

Once inside, the mixture almost immediately began to let off steam. The interior of the glass bulb began to fog over. Iseus helpfully placed an earthenware vial at the alembic's lip.

"And we can just leave that for a few minutes," the Dragonborn said with an air of finality. "The chaurus egg has even more moisture than the nirnroot. You should see what it's like trying to distill vampire dust, I usually actually need to add water for that."

"Forgive J'zargo's ignorance, but what exactly is a chaurus?" J'zargo twisted around in his seat to look up at his new mentor. Up close, in the warm torchlight of the laboratory, Iseus looked like any other young Imperial man. Without the armor, the Khajiit might have thought him to be an artist, a bard, perhaps. He seemed too gentle in demeanor to be a warrior.

"Oh, it's an animal the Falmer raise, they build practically all their tools out of its shell material. It's like a… It's like a scorpion, but big as a hound, and instead of a stinger and claws, it just has huge teeth. Oh, and its stomach's contents are extremely poisonous, it can use them as a projectile weapon."

Brynjolf made a strangled noise behind them.

"Ah." J'zargo nodded slowly. More likely than not, then, they would be very common in Blackreach. This was something of a double-edged sword, and J'zargo was not fond of swords. "I wonder what they normally eat. I have not seen any smaller creatures in this cavern."

"I dunno, I think they're carnivores," Iseus said, scratching his scalp with his metal fingers. "The Falmer like to just go out, grab whatever creatures they can and throw them into the chaurus pens, but down here? Uh… I dunno. I haven't explored the cave network enough to know, honestly."

"So you don't really know all of what's out there," Noster said. "I mean, if we haven't even figured out the food chain down here."

"Of course, Noster, there's a reason I have you two in the lab with us. I think being in the same room as me is a pretty good guarantee of your safety, right?"

"Well, yes…"

"I was more interested in that sphere just showing up. I already destroyed the automatons that patrol this area."

"Hmm, wh-…" Noster halted. "I… Noticed there wasn't any debris from the last one you destroyed, out there."

"Oh, it'll be up on the platform," the Dragonborn said nonchalantly. "The entrance to Alftand. I lured it up there first. You're very perceptive, though."

There was a half-minute or so of silence as everybody thought things over.

"So what do you all think?" Iseus brightly asked. "Of this place."

Another bit of silence.

"I'm still struggling with the fact this cavern exists," Brynjolf said. "It's been right here, beneath our feet this whole time."

"Aye," Noster nodded. "But if anyone is going to be down here, I'm glad it's the Dragonborn."

"What were those mushrooms?" Brynjolf suddenly added, as though it had just occurred to him to ask. "The big glowing ones. What is that?"

"Uh… I think it's just a bigger version of what we find on the walls of caves all the time," the Dragonborn shrugged. "I don't know if they have a special function. I'm not touching them until I figure that out, though."

"Well, how are you going to do that?" Noster asked.

"You'll be organizing whatever surveyors, alchemists, botanists, whomever we get, into a committee to study the workings of Blackreach, once things are in place a bit better."

"_I_ will?"

"Yeah, that'll be one of your first tasks as the Steward of Blackreach."

"But— I don't—" Noster's command of language failed him.

The Dragonborn remained silent.

"_Why?_"

"I think you already know the answer to that, Noster." And that seemed to settle that, because Noster said nothing more. Iseus looked down at J'zargo. "You've been quiet."

"It's done," J'zargo said. The misty film on the inside of the alembic's glass was gone. No more fluid dripped out into the vial. It seemed to be full. He stood up, edging past Iseus, and held the vial in front of his face.

"Oh, good," Iseus said, "now why d-"

J'zargo was suddenly possessed by an impulse to tilt the entire bottle's contents down his throat. He barely even tasted it. It just went down into his belly, and… When he lowered his head once more, he could not see his hand, or the vial in it. In fact, his entire body had become invisible!

Noster suddenly stood up and almost tripped over his chair. "Wh— he's vanished!"

The Dragonborn politely nodded to where he was fairly certain J'zargo was. "Congratulations, apprentice. You've just successfully brewed a potion of invisibility."

Brynjolf was leaning back in his seat and smirking. J'zargo padded up to him, cloth boots almost entirely silent on the stone floor. Then he dropped the vial into the Nord's lap. The moment he did, his body reappeared with a red flash and a rush of air.

He had to give Brynjolf due credit—the man's reaction was impressive. The moment the Khajiit appeared next to him, he rolled out of his seat onto the floor, and came up on one knee with a dagger in his hand. He only relaxed when he realized what exactly had just happened.

"Relax. J'zargo means no harm." J'zargo gave him a toothy smile, then turned to Iseus. "So, the nirnroot and the chaurus egg can both provide the effect of invisibility?"

"So can vampire dust," Iseus nodded. "But yes, those two make an excellent invisibility potion. I'm sad you interrupted it. I would have liked to see how long it lasted."

"Next time, then," J'zargo said. He did not care. That experience was enlightening. Invisibility, he knew, was a very advanced spell in the illusion school of magic. He had just replicated it with a few exotic odds and ends, and almost no effort. If this sort of thing was what alchemy had in store for him, he almost resented the College of Winterhold for not teaching him more of it.

"And a next time there will be." Iseus hopped up and sat on top of the alchemy counter. It was solid stone, but this said much of his priorities, J'zargo thought.

"Well, what happens now?" Brynjolf looked between the other three of them, and stopped on Iseus. "What've you got for us, lad?"

J'zargo had never answered the Dragonborn's question. What did he think of this place? Of Blackreach? He thought it was an opportunity. To this day, the Dwemer had many secrets, some stored in this place, and that would be useful. But as he listened to what his mentor had to say, J'zargo realized that the greatest opportunity of Blackreach was that he would be under the wing of the most powerful mortal alive.


	10. Ancano 2

Tirdas, 6:50 AM, 16th of Evening Star, 4E 201

Markarth

When he was a small child, no older than ten years, Ancano had decided to build a play fortress out behind his home, in the field. For his age, he thought, he had showed a remarkable amount of foresight. The first thing he'd done was to gather some good thick sticks and use a mallet to pound them into the earth in a nice wide ring. Then he built a sort of palisade around them, from smaller sticks, of course, and things went from there.

Within a month, he'd built, with his own two hands, a fortress so elaborate he could actually live in it if he wanted. There was a central sort of hut with a deerskin roof, a few little lookout posts, a flag with his own personal logo. A few times, he played with his friends in it, and they were always impressed with how much work he'd done. If it were anyone else, they might have been skeptical that he'd built it himself at all.

Before long, though, the young elf's parents had had quite enough. They told him to get rid of his twig-fort. It was an eyesore, or something of the sort, looking bad in front of the neighbors. Ancano wasn't going to disobey them, but they couldn't expect him to take that lying down. The next morning, he went out back, systematically doused the whole fortress with lamp oil—which he paid for, out of his own pocket, they couldn't pin that one on him—and set it ablaze. It burned so hot he couldn't go anywhere near it until after lunchtime, and then it was a mess of ash and smoke.

Strangely enough, he didn't mind the loss. If anything, it was gratifying, in a queer, counterintuitive sense, to stroll through his handiwork afterwards. He distinctly recalled the scent of wood smoke in the air as he stepped through the smoldering remains of the fort he'd destroyed. His parents had been less than pleased, of course, but he'd contained the blaze perfectly, and ash spread out easily enough. They couldn't complain.

From that day forward, it had been a fantasy of his that one day, he would stroll through the ashes of some site he'd conquered, still smoldering from the unstoppable attack he had visited upon it. It lingered with him for decades to come, just an amusing thought in the back of his mind. And when he showed up the morning after the attack on Markarth, some part of him was hoping his fantasy would actually be realized. Unfortunately, Markarth was built into a mountainside, fashioned in the architecture of the Dwemer. It was made entirely of stone. There was simply nothing to burn. Ancano felt singularly cheated.

They took the city in the dead of night. It was an effortless affair. All they had to do, truly, was send a few men over the walls with grappling hooks and ropes, have them open the gates, and send in the 14th Unit. Exactly one hundred mages, hand-picked elites of Alinor. Within half an hour, the guards had been subdued, the Jarl had been captured, and all was well. Ancano himself had supposedly been busy organizing the main body of troops to occupy the city, but the truth was that he wanted to give himself a chance to introduce himself by strolling in through the aftermath. In any case, the general himself did not enter the city until sunrise. By this time, his soldiers were already taking down the Imperial flags and replacing them with the Aldmeri standard. Still no smoldering ash, though, very unsatisfactory.

Ancano entered the city at the head of a massive formation of Altmer soldiers. Their marching was likely loud enough to rouse any locals who hadn't been woken up by the guards' struggles. The streets were not very wide in this place, and Ancano had to give the order to halt before his elves could crush him against a building or such.

Four Thalmor wizards in uniform marched down the steep streets towards him. They seemed to be dragging someone by their knees. Ancano realized it must be the Jarl. That would be the only person his elves would bother bringing to him.

"General Ancano!" One of the wizards called out. Ancano did not move to approach them. He waited, standing perfectly still, until they were close enough for him to speak in an indoor volume.

"This is Jarl Igmund?" Ancano was impressed to find that the Jarl appeared entirely uninjured. Stunned, perhaps, but without a single mark on him.

Igmund blinked and looked up at the general with dilated eyes. "What… What is the meaning of this…"

"I thought it best to ask you what to do with him," the same wizard as before said. With his hood up, the morning sun shone down on his head in a way that just barely obscured his eyes. It looked very dramatic.

"Thank you, mage," Ancano nodded. "From what I have heard, Jarl Igmund has long supported the White-Gold Concordat. He has done a splendid job of ensuring cooperation between the Empire and the Thalmor."

He crouched down in front of the Jarl and continued. "The White-Gold Concordat has been discarded. The time of cooperation is at an end."

The Nord's gaze came to focus on Ancano's face. "Oblivion take you," he spat.

"Well, that's that, then, isn't it?" Ancano's first impulse was to summon a sword and slash the Jarl's throat open. But he had better foresight than that. It was always possible to execute a prisoner, while magic had not advanced enough to un-kill anyone. He stood up.

"What are your orders, General?" the wizard asked.

"I want him and any surviving members of his staff incarcerated. Separately. Keep them under constant guard, but… Treat them well. They may be valuable as hostages yet."

"He was the only one to be spared, sir."

"Very well, off you go," Ancano sighed. The wizards turned and dragged the Jarl off while he spouted some impotent rhetoric about how they would all pay for this.

The soldiers behind him numbered some four thousand strong. The remainder had stayed in their mountainside camp as a reserve, but there were still far too many to address. Still, Ancano turned around and did his best.

"Markarth is ours! Proceed to the Imperial garrison. Make yourselves at home."

And with a rousing cheer, the soldiers filed their way into the city. Ancano wisely decided to outpace them and head for the keep. All he had to do was stumble his way through a city whose roads were mostly staircases first.

Understone Keep was in dreadful condition, Ancano thought. If Markarth was to be treated as one great Dwemer ruin, then the keep was the most Dwemer-like, and the most ruined. It lay at the very back of the city, recessed into the mountain itself, shut off by a massive pair of dwarven metal doors. Behind them was an absolute mess. It was like an archaeological expedition interrupted halfway through. There was a spacious central atrium, but it was filled with debris, mounds of dirt, giant chunks of broken carved stone. Between here and the throne room as an impressive gallery of ancient ruins, and apparently, off to the left, there was an entrance to an entire underground dwarven complex. The humming and hissing of ancient machinery filled the air, a constant low rumble in the background, more easily felt than heard. Very grand, all of it, but Ancano did not understand how the Jarl had worked in such squalid conditions.

Still, the throne room seemed like good enough to relax in for now. Ancano had not entirely woken up yet. He slouched almost comically low in the stone seat—which was truly made of stone, by the way, it seemed awfully uncomfortable to sit in for very long—and propped his chin up on one hand. At some point, a regent overseer would be installed in the city, and they would have the honor of sitting up here. For now, though, it was Ancano's hard-earned privilege to try to rest on this great awkward piece of rock.

At the moment, he was hosting the gracious company of two elves. The first was the leader of the 14th Unit, Commander Lestra. The second was his acquaintance Prime Justiciar Elevir. There was no strategic reason for Elevir to be present—Ancano simply had come to enjoy his presence, after a fashion. Much better company than the late Ondolemar. Unfortunately, however, the throne room was little more than a small staircase with a stone chair crammed in at the top, so his esteemed companions were all sitting down on whatever flat surfaces they could find.

"Well, that was easy," Ancano deadpanned.

"We knew Markarth would be a pushover," Elevir shrugged. "The Thalmor have been intensely active here for years. Every single one of the Justiciars who came to High Rock from here could tell me the strengths and weaknesses of the city."

"I must admit—I expected more resistance from the Imperial garrison. They must have known what they were up against, at least."

"There weren't that many, honestly. The garrison was almost empty. We've sent out scouts to see if they're outside the city."

Ancano sat up, eyes narrowed. It didn't take a master strategist to know that that was wrong. "That's not good enough. Lestra!"

"Yes, General?" The black-robed elf on the left side of the room stood at attention.

"I want your mages to search the Dwemer complex beneath this keep. Leave no stone unturned. If the Imperials have retreated down there, we're in for an ordeal."

"Sir, yessir." Lestra turned and excused herself from the room. Ancano's company was down to one.

A minute or two of silence passed. Clamoring voices in the distance were faintly audible over the noise of machinery.

"Should've done this years ago," Ancano muttered.

"Hm?" Elevir gave Ancano an odd look.

"Oh, I apologize. I said, we should have done this years ago. It's turning out to be so… Easy. The entire Legion could throw itself against the 14th Unit, and the entire Legion would likely lose."

"Ah." The Prime Justiciar nodded appreciatively.

"On second thought…" Ancano paused for a few long seconds. "I am far too bored today. Come, Elevir. We are going on a little expedition."

With that, the Thalmor general and the Prime Justiciar exited the throne room. From here was a massive staircase down to the rest of the keep. No railings, of course, and the steps were in as abhorrent condition as one might expect. They were harder for Ancano to go down than up. The Prime Justiciar addressed him as they walked.

"If I may, General," Elevir said, "I do not feel our concerns should stop with the Imperial Legion."

"Let me guess. The Dragonborn?" Ancano was beginning to hate that title.

A few braziers very dimly illuminated the keep here and there, but off in the direction they were walking, the walls were host to the hard, bright light of Dwemer lamps. This was good, because the floor quickly degenerated into bare dirt and rocks for a stretch.

"Yes, sir. The Dragonborn. One of my Justiciars told me his given name is Iseus."

"How very… Helpful."

Elevir blinked and shook his head. "We've spent the past twenty-six years preparing for the Second War with the Empire. We're ready to fight the Legion. We're not ready to fight the Dragonborn."

"Why do you continue going on about that man, Elevir? He's only one man. I don't know what you expect from him."

The hallway opened up into a reasonably spacious cavern. This was the first area that looked properly like a Dwemer ruin, but it was still obvious that the Nords had been here afterwards. There was a stream of water, running rapid over jagged stones, across the middle of the cavern, and a dwarven bridge across it. On both sides of the bridge—right up in front of him, and in a couple of distant tower-like structures—were more of those glowing braziers. On the bridge's far side was a staircase up to a set of double doors, wide open. Lestra and her wizards were nowhere to be seen.

"That would be our ruin, right?" Elevir asked.

Ancano said nothing and continued walking.

Flanking the stairs were two stone columns, which were topped off with what Ancano recognized to be absolutely massive dwarven spheres. They were unfolded, but motionless. It reminded him of the Nord tendency to put the severed heads of powerful beasts on wall mounts.

On the far side of the doors was a large, atrium-like chamber that looked like it had endured a cave-in. There were stairs up to more doors on the left and right, but most of them were blocked off by debris. Ancano noted that there were massive cobwebs on some of the surfaces here. Frostbite spiders, no doubt. He flicked his wrist. An ethereal sword appeared, with the telltale aura of something being summoned from Oblivion, already in his hand.

Beyond this door, the stone masonry simply stopped, and gave way to rough dirt walls once again. This was quite certainly the territory of frostbite spiders. Ancano was quietly alarmed by the realization that this had always been here, not two minutes' walk from the throne room. Safest city in the Reach, indeed.

"Wait," Elevir said. "Is the 14th Unit already down here?"

"I believe so." Ancano shrugged and continued walking. "You haven't answered my question."

"The… What? The one about the Dragonborn?" Elevir took Ancano's silence for agreement, which was accurate. "I've been working in Skyrim for a long time. I thought our affairs here were under control, and thanks to him, they're not, anymore. And now my Justiciars are no longer active anywhere in the province."

"Besides Markarth, of course."

"Besides Markarth. Thankfully, my intelligence network isn't all so obvious, but it has been… Crippled. In the past weeks. It's no longer so easy to track the activities of one man who does not wish to be followed."

This cave had already been explored, recently. Torches were still burning, though magically enhanced oils meant those could be weeks old. Spiders the size of wolves laid here and there on the floor, motionless, blackened with the telltale burns of destruction magic. Indeed, the 14th Unit had already passed through this area.

"I wonder why Jarl Igmund never bothered to kill these things," Ancano mused, mostly to himself. "It couldn't be that difficult. They already defeated enough automatons to stock a Dwemer museum."

"You mustn't forget how dysfunctional the Reach is," Elevir said. "Why should they have cared about whatever's beyond those doors back there? They're easier to shut out than many things."

"Yes, well…" Ancano trailed off. His idea departed him prematurely, in due deference to what he was looking at. They had just walked into a chamber absolutely covered in spider silk, barely any patches of bare ground to be found. It was also covered in great black burn marks. But the thing that had stolen Ancano's focus was the giant spider in the middle of the room. It was obviously dead, abdomen flat on the ground, legs splayed out awkwardly—head practically burned to a crisp.

"Wh… Did the 14th do this all just now?" Elevir asked with an incredulous quaver.

Ancano took a moment to regain his composure before he answered. "Ah… Most likely. Truly, Elevir, they're meant for more than pest control. What's this, now?"

On the far side of the room was another set of Dwemer doors, set in a proper stone frame. The doors were just barely ajar. In front of them lay a corpse in Imperial armor.

Ancano's sword reached its time limit and dissipated from the air. He ignored it, and stepped over the body with delicate disdain, to open the doors. There was a staircase leading steeply downwards through a stonework passage. This would be where the ruin started properly, then. But the elf's attention was less on sight than sound. With the doors open wide, he could distinctly hear the sounds of war from somewhere down here. Shouts, cries, metallic crashes, all down there in the distance, audible even over the omnipresent white noise of Dwemer machinery.

"Let's go," he said quickly, and started striding down the stairs, two steps at a time. He was still bored, after all. It would be a shame to miss out on the action. Unfortunately for him, the staircase took that moment to suddenly quake under his feet. Something, somewhere, must have caved in. Ancano very nearly fell and broke his neck.

The 14th Unit, like all of the Thalmor Mage Units, was exactly one hundred elves in number, no more, no less. These hundred were divided into five sections, and these sections were divided into five teams. They were trained to do more than cooperate, to act as more than the sum of their parts. Every mage was coordinated within his team; every team was coordinated within its section; every section was coordinated within the unit. Because of this, the Mage Units were known to defeat enemies seemingly far more powerful than they were.

Ancano turned the corner at the bottom of the stairs, and happened upon the source of that din of combat. It was another cavern, one that extended far below his feet. A small network of bridges and open towers filled the space between a flooded floor and a glittering ceiling. Any other day, it would have been a beautiful place to sit and think, but it was in this network that the 14th Unit was doing battle.

There were automatons everywhere. On the bridge between Ancano and the nearest tower, pieces of broken metal were littered so thick that he had to watch where he stepped. He could see most of the cavern from up here. A team of Thalmor wizards with bound swords was circling in a deadly dance with two dwarven spheres. Three massive frost atronachs were piling on top of an even larger steam centurion, trying to wrestle it off the side of a bridge. Spider workers, like mechanical caricatures of the arachnids Ancano had just passed, were trading lightning bolts with elves. Just by a quick estimate, there looked to be no more than twenty mages in here. That was wrong. Had Commander Lestra ventured down here with only one section?

The closest automaton was a dwarven spider worker one level below him. The bridge it stood on connected to the same tower as his. It was advancing towards an unseen target, probably inside the tower itself.

Ancano did not wait for a better opportunity to strike. He was a trained Thalmor soldier, and more importantly, he was here on his own initiative. He took off at a breakneck sprint, casting a layer of mage armor over himself with one hand, and conjuring a new sword with the other. His footfalls had to be perfect. There was so much debris to avoid, and if he were to slip now… Well, it was a long fall down to that water.

The elf's path took him right off the bridge's edge, just before it reached the tower. He leaped off the side at the same time that he twirled his sword around into a reverse grip. He'd timed it so the spider worker would be directly beneath him when he jumped. The fall was perhaps ten feet down. Ancano held his ethereal hilt with both hands, and with a cry of exertion, brought the weapon plunging down just as he landed. The impact on his feet jarred him, but his blade carried true. It drove straight into the spider worker's dorsal gyro, so deep that he couldn't pull it back out. The spider had the audacity to continue trying to move, so Ancano gave his sword a wrenching twist, and that finished it off. Unfortunately for him, the spider then proceeded to explode in a shower of lightning.

He couldn't see. It felt like someone had just thrown a fistful of hot coals in his face. His arms were numb, he couldn't feel his fingers. If it weren't for that armor spell, Ancano might not have even survived that. He sank onto his knees, so as to avoid stumbling blindly off the bridge, and absently cast a healing spell on himself until he was feeling better. The joys of being a mage. Strangely, the greatest worry on his mind was whether the electrical shock had disheveled his beautiful long white hair. The joys of being a high elf, perhaps.

When he wasn't seeing spots anymore, Ancano realized that the target had been a mage to his right, down on one knee with a crossbow bolt in his thigh. His vision also cleared just in time for him to see the steam centurion smashing the last surviving frost atronach in two. It was close enough by him that he could see the individual runic patterns engraved on its metal plating. It didn't look like it had been damaged at all so far. It noticed him.

The dwarven centurion was, by a wide margin, the largest and strongest automaton to ever see use. It stood at some ten feet tall on two thick legs, and like the dwarven sphere, its arms both ended with weapons. However, its size came with the obvious weakness of being very slow to move. This centurion was lumbering its way up a long, curved ramp towards Ancano. If it reached him, he would die. There was no contesting this point. Fortunately, the general had a few good seconds to stop and think.

Long ago, Ancano had read a sort of guide on cave exploration. It had said that after one hundred feet or so, a falling impact on a body of water was simply not survivable. Water was always a liquid, but at that speed, it would be like a landing on solid stone. This drop looked more like seventy or eighty feet, but that standard was for mer and men. A steam centurion was far more durable—but also far more massive, and a little top-heavy. He understood the logic behind those frost atronachs.

The elf's thoughts then went to his company. The 14th Unit. Deliberately designed to maximize the effects of teamwork. To work together.

At the top of his lungs, Ancano bellowed, "Everyone! The centurion! _Telekinesis!_"

By itself, telekinesis was not a powerful spell. Unusable, in combat. It was too slow, too weak, simply by nature. But what if five mages did it at once? Ten? Twenty? Ancano dropped the sword, raised both hands at the centurion and _pushed_. An aura of red-orange energy appeared from his palms outward. It felt to him like pushing on a stone wall, but he kept doing it. And as the mages around him did what they could to stun the remaining automatons, more of them were free to pitch in. The centurion's steps were becoming slower, more labored. It was starting to slip in place. All they had to do was keep pushing…

The centurion tried to take a step backward to steady its footing, but it slipped instead. Its metal foot scraped ineffectually over the stone, and for a moment, the automaton's whole body was in a state of critical imbalance. Then it toppled over the edge, and fell like a rock, straight down, down to the water. There was a deafening crash as the centurion landed on the surface. Ancano couldn't tell how much was the water splashing and how much was the centurion breaking.

Then the fight resumed. There wasn't much left to do, by now, just mopping up. Those two dwarven spheres had been destroyed long since. Ancano looked back at the wounded wizard to his right. He had pulled the crossbow bolt out, it was on the floor in a little red puddle, and he was struggling back onto his feet while healing himself back up.

"Mage!" Ancano called out. Not very loudly, they were only fifteen feet or so apart.

"Sir!" The wizard gave him the briefest of glances. He was already readying a destruction spell.

"Where's Commander Lestra?"

"She took the others into the ruins, sir! The automatons were just motionless before. They came to life right when she left!" The wizard threw a lightning bolt down at a dwarven spider on the bottom level.

Ancano took another look around the room. "Which way?"

The wizard wordlessly pointed past Ancano, at the doors at the bridge's end.

Ancano nodded in thanks and turned away. He started across the bridge, blinking away the last of the disorientation from that spider's shock, and summoning another sword for himself. The telekinesis had drained his magicka almost entirely. He had to walk unarmed for a few seconds while preparing himself for any new spells.

He didn't get all the way to the doors, though, because they opened up to reveal—big surprise—Commander Lestra. She barged through with the authoritative sort of air that any Thalmor leader exuded, then abruptly stopped and looked around the room. Her eyes settled on Ancano. "General? What are _you_ doing here?"

"I got bored. Did you find the legionnaires?"

"No, but we found a massive den of Falmer." Lestra was flanked by three mages carrying bound weapons. The members of her team, of course. "At least a hundred fifty."

"I take it they're dealt with." Ancano did not feel bad about stopping to chat. The fight out here was largely over with.

"We brought the roof of their cave down on their heads, you may have heard the impact." Lestra said it like a fact of life.

In fact, Ancano did remember hearing the impact. Rather, he remembered feeling it. After all, it had almost broken his neck, going down that staircase. "Excellent work, Lestra. I hope none of your wizards have been hurt."

"A few injuries," Lestra shrugged. This was a relief. Replacing members of Mage Units was supremely annoying business. The unit hierarchy was not designed to accommodate Thalmor deaths. In other, more pleasant news, the fighting sounds had just about stopped.

"Very well. I maintain that this venture was for the best. Truthfully, I'm still struggling with the notion that so much hostile force was right beneath Markarth this entire time."

"Nothing that the 14th couldn't handle, of course."

Ancano smirked.

"Commander Lestra!" Elevir's voice shouted from somewhere behind the general's back. Footsteps were rapidly approaching. It sounded like he was running up to them.

"The legionnaires aren't here," Ancano said without turning around. He felt he'd dispensed enough respect for now.

"Oh." Elevir stopped just behind him. "All right, then. I hope our scouts come back with some good stories to tell."

Lestra peered over Ancano's shoulder at the Prime Justiciar. This was too fun. "I don't remember there being so many wrecked automatons out here."

"Oh, is that what you were so confused about?" Ancano asked wryly.

"That, and we left the cavern through a different door. The passage loops back around to here, it seems."

"The section you left here was fighting the automatons when we arrived," Elevir said.

"Yes, apparently they were in some sort of standby previously? They activated spontaneously, or so I'm told," Ancano added.

"Yes, I recall the automatons out here," Lestra said. "When I saw the steam centurion, I declined to have them pre-emptively destroyed. Speaking of which, where _is_ the centurion?"

"I don't think it managed to claim any lives out here," Ancano said, "but you might want to send a salvage team down to the water. I remember reading that the dynamo cores are very useful."

"So…" Elevir paused. Ancano imagined him looking from one elf to the other. "What do we do now, sir?"

Ancano turned around and looked at Elevir, eyebrows raised. "Honestly? My honest judgment? I think we should just take the day off."


	11. Brynjolf 2

Fredas, 6:09 PM, 19th of Evening Star, 4E 201

The College of Winterhold

This felt wrong. Brynjolf didn't belong in a college for mages. He belonged… Actually, he wasn't sure where he belonged, but it couldn't be this place.

Winterhold was all snow and ice. There weren't any trees for miles. Even the wooden buildings had a film of ice over them. It was such a tiny place that there wasn't even a proper stable to keep his horse in. He ended up just tethering the damn beast by the inn where a couple other mounts were being watched. Close enough, maybe.

There wasn't really much mystery where the College was, in this place. Winterhold ended with a cliff down to the sea, and just beyond that cliff was a big, broad spire of rock with a round-walled sort of castle on top. It even had a stone bridge going to the rest of the town.

Brynjolf gathered his hooded cloak around himself and started towards the base of the bridge. For once, he was actually wearing armor beneath it. He thought it made him look more like an honorable Nord, and less like a thief. Which he was, but he was also a bit of an actor.

Not that he had to act very hard. After that… _Experience_ (still unsure whether it was real or a skooma-induced dream) Brynjolf had gone through with the Dragonborn and his pals, he'd more or less just stopped caring about everything. What kind of threat were the Thalmor? How were they supposed to scare him? He'd been to a kingdom-sized cave full of giant glowing mushrooms.

The bridge started with an awkwardly steep, snow-covered ramp. No match for a thief's agility, of course. He bounded his way up, and then came to a skidding halt when he saw an elf in robes standing there at the top, glaring down at him. She reminded him of some Justiciars he'd seen once.

"Cross the bridge at your own peril," she said.

"Well, it is a bit icy, aye," Brynjolf nodded.

"What?"

"I'm here to speak with the Arch-Mage, I trust he's somewhere in the building?"

"Outsiders are not allowed-"

"I'm here on J'zargo's behalf, the Dragonborn needed him to stay for some stuff."

"Oh!" The elf brightened. "I apologize. We've been having some trouble with the local Nords. Have you been inside the College before?"

"Sadly not, ma'am. Is the Arch-Mage here?"

"Yes, let me show you inside. My name's Faralda, by the way." The elf turned around and started down the bridge. Brynjolf followed along.

Most castles were lit by braziers and torches. The College of Winterhold was lit by floating balls of magelight and pools of glowing blue liquid. Brynjolf passed by a few on the bridge. He figured it'd be best to just not ask about those.

"You mentioned trouble with the local Nords?" Brynjolf asked.

"The Nords here distrust the College. We don't anticipate any real violence, but it never hurts to be prepared."

They were at the castle now. Faralda pushed open an iron gate and beckoned him through. There was a nice little courtyard here, perfectly circular, surrounded by a covered walkway. There was a huge version of that glowing-blue-pool in the middle of everything, and a path around it to a big couple of doors down at the far end. That was where Faralda was taking him.

"Uh… What exactly is that blue stuff, ma'am?"

"I suppose you could call it liquid magicka," Faralda said, like she was referring to some kind of in-joke. Brynjolf wanted to smack her.

The doors were at the base of a massive round tower. Brynjolf supposed most of the exciting things were in here. But when they got inside, there was just some sort of empty atrium with another one of those pools in the center. He observed that the ceiling in here was quite a bit lower than the roof outside, just before noticing the staircases on either side of him. Of course.

He also observed that everything here was extremely blue. It was probably the lighting. But even his skin looked sort of cold and bluish.

"The Hall of the Elements," Faralda said. "Most of our lessons and meetings take place in here. Above us is the Arcanaeum, and the Arch-Mage's quarters are above that."

"The Arca-what?"

"It's a library of arcane texts."

"Thank you."

The stairwell went up for quite a few flights before Brynjolf saw a door, but it was for the Arcanaeum, so he just kept climbing. It was very dim in here. He almost tripped over the steps a couple of times. But in the end, once his legs were properly sore, the Nord was standing in the Arch-Mage's quarters.

This room looked far too big to belong to any one person. It was dominated by a circular garden, filled with almost painfully bright magelight, casting sharp shadows every which way. The back half was surrounded by a stone partition.

Brynjolf recognized a few different plants that were usable in alchemy. Notably, there was a single leafless tree in the middle of it all, and there were glowing mushrooms on its trunk. The long tentacle-like strands hanging from their edges reminded him of the far, far larger ones in Blackreach.

Fittingly, there was an alchemy lab off to the left. And an enchanting table off to the right. A robed, hooded, bearded elf was sitting on a chair by it. His skin looked to be a pale blue, so it was probably a light gray in normal lighting. This would be a Dunmer, then.

"Arch-Mage Aren," Faralda called out. "This Nord has requested your audience. I would not have disturbed you, but he's here on behalf of J'zargo."

"Whom we sent off with the Dragonborn, yes." The Dunmer rose from his chair and approached Brynjolf at an easy pace. "And who might you be?"

"Name's Brynjolf, sir. Wait, no, strike the sir, you don't want that, uh… Friend of the Dragonborn. And J'zargo, by association." Brynjolf lowered his hood and gave his best laid-back smile.

"A pleasure to meet you, Brynjolf. I am Savos Aren, Arch-Mage of the College of Winterhold."

Brynjolf scanned the Arch-Mage briefly. His robes were a lot fancier-designed than Faralda's, but besides a silver clasp over his chest, they had no jewelry or anything of the sort. They covered all but his face and hands. He was a gaunt, old man, sunken cheekbones, weathered skin, and his immaculate long beard (which actually had an overhand knot tied in it, Dunmer were strange folk) was only a slightly darker gray than the rest of his face. Still, he spoke with a fluid, elegant tone, and just going by how he stood and walked, he might as well have been half Brynjolf's age.

It only occurred to him after all that analysis that the Arch-Mage was probably scanning him in kind. He looked about that focused, anyway.

"Thank you, Faralda," Aren nodded over his guest's shoulder. Faralda politely excused herself from the room.

"It's an… Honor to meet you in person," Brynjolf said. That was what he was supposed to say to an elf like this one, right?

"Please, spare me your attempts at formality. I mean no ill will, I simply wish for us to speak honestly." Aren turned and headed back to his chair. "Please, take a seat."

Wrong, then. Brynjolf followed along quietly and sat down in the other free chair. Between him and the Arch-Mage was a strange little end table. He turned his chair to face it more.

Aren obligingly mimicked his movement with the chair. "So. What can I do for you, Brynjolf? I trust you would not have asked for my personal presence without due reason."

True enough, Faralda had surprised him by just letting him see a man who was probably so busy with important things. The Nord had to remind himself that he was in charge of important things himself these days.

"What, you're not going to test me to see if I'm who I say I am?" Brynjolf smirked wryly.

"No need," Aren said indifferently. "You already passed it when you redacted your calling me 'sir'. The last person to do that in the last… Ten or so years was the Dragonborn himself, and I chided him for it. You'd only know that by talking to him. Now, what can I do for you?"

"The Dragonborn is taking the war to the Thalmor," Brynjolf said, slowly, carefully. He had to choose his words carefully. "That's what he wanted J'zargo's help with. And… All right, before we get into this, I'm gonna be telling you some sensitive things here. They can't be repeated, of course."

Aren smiled thinly. "Well. You couldn't pick a much more secure room to converse in, and I give you my word, nothing you tell me today will be passed on. Now, continue, if you will."

"That'll do." Brynjolf's eyes wandered around the room as he talked. From the side here, he could see behind that stone partition. Looked like there was actually a bed back there. He'd actually forgotten this was someone's room. "The Dragonborn's established his stronghold beneath Alftand. The Dwemer ruin. He's got his friends there, but he'd like to start recruiting. Here's the catch, though. The Thalmor cannot be able to get inside there. One spy could probably destroy the whole place singlehandedly."

"Well, if he's in a ruin we all know the location of, they'll just send their armies right for the door, I would think."

"I said _beneath_ Alftand, not _in_ Alftand. His stronghold is _in_ Blackreach."

"In what?"

"It's a… It's a giant cavern, it connects Alftand to a couple other ruins in The Pale and Hjaalmarch, I think. It's huge."

"Sounds like it!" Aren shifted in his seat and rested his bearded chin between thumb and forefinger. "This explains a number of discrepancies we've noticed in the Dwemer ruins over the centuries. So you want me to help you prevent the Thalmor from entering Blackreach."

"That's right."

"Well, I didn't know that this place existed, until just now. The Thalmor won't either. Are there any ways to the surface besides through the ruins we know about?"

Brynjolf recalled the ride down the Great Lift. "Yes, definitely. Ah… Several, one for each ruin, plus another somewhere in the Pale. I dunno about that one."

"Then you'd be well-advised to seal the ruins off from Blackreach, if the Dragonborn hasn't already done so. The locations of your other entrances must remain a secret."

"I have to say, I'm surprised by your attitude."

"Hmm?" Aren arched his eyebrows.

"I was always told the College of Winterhold stayed out of political struggles, but here you're helping me with war plans, just like that. I thought you'd have needed a lot more convincing. That's why the Dragonborn sent me, actually, I'm more diplomatic than he is."

Aren's smile was a bit more genuine this time. "Ahh. I see. Are you familiar with the Synod? The College of Whispers?"

"Afraid not."

"They're both magical institutions down south, in Cyrodiil. They have a bitter rivalry. They spend their energy on protecting secrets, hoarding magical artifacts, lobbying for the Emperor's favor… It's the nightmare of anyone genuinely interested in the arcane mysteries of life, to be embroiled in such things."

Brynjolf frowned. This made a good deal of sense, he thought. Maybe. He wasn't a mage. He didn't understand all that much about how they worked. "So you don't want to be like them."

"We want no part in politics. Our neutrality in the Civil War was a reflection of that. Whichever side won, we would be allowed to continue our work in peace. This being said, we are not above self-preservation. If the Thalmor conquer Skyrim, they will likely shut down the College of Winterhold. We pose too much of a threat to them in open war. Even in peacetime, we haven't been safe. Until recently, one of their agents was posted here."

"You knew he was an agent, and didn't throw him out?"

"That might have antagonized the Thalmor unnecessarily. It was very unexpected, though. Not terribly long ago, somewhere on the scale of months, a lone Thalmor officer, name of Ancano, invited himself in and declared himself my 'advisor'. He never gave me so much as a scrap of guidance besides telling me to share my findings with him, of course. I'd never seen a more obvious spy.

"In any case, he's no longer here. He left when the Thalmor recalled all of their personnel from Skyrim. But we have not forgotten what he wanted from us, or how the Thalmor think of us overall. If we can do anything to protect Skyrim from their reach, short of having us all killed in battle, we will."

"Fair enough," Brynjolf said quietly.

"Now… Your business of recruiting," Savos said. "What did you want to do, send out heralds?"

"Something to that effect, aye."

"Obviously, they cannot be given the locations of your entrances to Blackreach. They cannot _know_ those locations. They will need to send any interested parties elsewhere."

"No," Brynjolf said suddenly. "We'll tell them all about Alftand. The ancient dwarven city, turned into a fortress by the Dragonborn. Fortify the entrance, post guards on watch, whatever. The Thalmor will figure out that's where everyone's coming and leaving anyway, I think. They can send all their armies at the door, it won't make any difference, they won't find anything important."

"Not bad," Aren nodded respectfully. "They have no reason to believe Blackreach exists, not until you give it to them. Now, I must repeat my original question. What… Can I do for you?"

"Make Alftand impenetrable," was the Nord's instant answer. "I want the Thalmor to _waste_ their resources trying to break in. And if they do, I want them to have an impossible time descending through the ruin. Anything you need to do. Make that place a nightmare for intruders."

There was a long pause. Arch-Mage Aren looked off into space. A smile formed very slowly on his lips. "Yes," he said. "Yes, the College of Winterhold will provide that defense for you. It would be my genuine pleasure, Brynjolf, to assist you. Is there anything else?"

"Well, I had a thought…"

"Go on."

"Do you know any good Nordic ruins? Anything around here we could pretend to be really interested in. I don't know what the Dragonborn's plan is, entirely, but I don't want the Thalmor to know either. They'll suspect he's up to _something_, after all, might as well throw them a decoy. Preferably one that would be a meat grinder for mages."

"Labyrinthian," Aren whispered.

"Come again, lad?"

"The ancient ruin of Labyrinthian," he repeated, still quietly. The look on his face was incomprehensible. "Beneath it, the Staff of Magnus is interred. A truly powerful artifact. But… I would not retrieve it for anything. I will… Contact you about it later."

Brynjolf mentally wrote that down, but said nothing. He had the feeling he was treading in sensitive waters.

That strange expression gave way for a polite impassiveness. "Is that all, then? You must have something you're curious about, you're talking to an Arch-Mage."

"Well, I…"

Brynjolf trailed off. He had just been offered the Arch-Mage's assistance with anything, off the books, with his supposed goal already out of the way. He thought quickly.

"Arch-Mage, why are they how they are? The Thalmor, I mean. I've never seen a group so devoted to just… Destroying… Everything. Besides the dragons, maybe."

Aren leaned back in his chair and intertwined his fingers together. "What do you know about the Altmer?"

"High elves? Good with magic, hail from the Summerset Isle, run the Aldmeri Dominion?"

"Men believe that the Aedra, the Divines, whatever you'd like to call them, are their creators. Elves believe that the same beings are their ancestors. This is especially so for the Altmer, for they are the closest living relatives to the Aldmer, which are said to be the descendants of the Ehlnofey, which are said in kind to be the descendants of the Aedra themselves, who lost their divine power when they spent it creating Mundus."

"Are you serious?"

"Well, yes."

"So… What?"

"So the Thalmor think they've been cheated out of their divine birthright, and they want to ascend from the mortal world into a higher existence. Everything between them and that goal is just an obstacle."

"You realize that sounds insane, right?"

"Brynjolf, do I look like an agent of the Thalmor to you? I'm telling you what I know, as you requested."

The Nord sat back like his conversation partner was doing, and pondered all of this information. He could've just tried reading some books about it, but frankly, he trusted the Arch-Mage's opinion a lot more. "Well… Are they right? Are they actually descended from the Divines?"

Aren shot him a sardonic look. "Does it matter?"


	12. Paarthurnax 2

Loredas, 12:00 PM, 20th of Evening Star, 4E 201

Reachwind Eyrie

In the end, Paarthurnax could not persuade himself to stay uninvolved. His first desire, his first urge, was to follow the Dovahkiin into the heart of battle. But this was no more than what it was—an urge. He had spent millennia training himself to overcome the urges that the nature of the dovah mind brought forth. This meant little.

But after the Dovahkiin left his company, Paarthurnax's meditation had been in disarray. He found himself contemplating not the Way of the Voice, but the conflict that Skyrim now faced. Something felt… Amiss. Something felt like the threat of the Thalmor transcended the petty politics of war. He had to know more.

And so he departed the Throat of the World, heading west, towards the Reach. To do what he was about to do, in the place now thought of as his 'home', would be an insult, or perhaps even a challenge. But to do it in neutral ground would be an invitation to talk. This was the way of the dovah.

The ancient dov perched atop an old Dwemer tower, resting his weary bones. It had been a long flight to this place, and the structure he now stood upon was the closest thing he could find to a rocky peak. It overlooked a cool, green valley, host to a river whose waters ran fast enough to glitter in the high noon sun. This place would be adequate.

Paarthurnax raised his head to the sky, and let out an echoing cry.

"_Od ah viing!_"

All Thu'ums were made of three words in the dovah language; dragon names followed the same structure, and were thus Thu'ums themselves. Paarthurnax had just called out the name of another one of Alduin's lieutenants—the one he had told the Dovahkiin to capture in the prison Dragonsreach. Odahviing was a headstrong dov, always assuming, always rising to challenges. He had been a perfect choice to lure in, with this same method of summoning, no less. But while the Dovahkiin had issued the Thu'um of Odahviing's name as a challenge, Paarhturnax had a different plan. That same headstrong attitude made Odahviing the most likely to know what was taking place in the present days.

There was a brief time of waiting. A dragon could only cross the sky so quickly, and Odahviing could have been anywhere in Skyrim. But soon enough, the silhouette of a young, strong dov, flying high above, appeared against the sun. The dov dropped down towards Paarthurnax like a falcon, revealing the vivid red of his scales as he came close, then wheeled around in a wide circle, his wingtip less than a man's height above the ground. He made a graceful landing before the tower, facing Paarthurnax, and thus it was his turn to wait.

The exchange of Thu'ums was brief and courteous. This was the custom that Paarthurnax had insisted the Dovahkiin adhere to. It had been no fiction—Paarthurnax, being the elder dovah of the two, spoke first, and then Odahviing returned in kind. Only after this was completed could the conversation properly begin.

"_Why have you summoned me, Paarthurnax_?" Odahviing's command of the dragon language was impressive, but blunt. Fitting, for a former subordinate of Alduin. This being said, Paarthurnax was a former subordinate of Alduin himself.

"_You have been exploring Skyrim for longer than I. I desire information."_

"_Is this a jest? You have had thousands of years to explore Skyrim. I spent them as lifeless bones in the earth!"_

Paarthurnax snorted with amusement_. "You know where I spent that time. Now, tell me about the Thalmor."_

"_The Thalmor? They are the new enemy of Mundus."_

"_Mundus? Not Skyrim, not Tamriel?"_

"_I meant what I said."_

There was a pause, during which the only sound was the breeze in the air.

"_What do they want, Odahviing?"_

"_I once thought they wanted to conquer Tamriel. This made them like any other leaders of men and mer. Then the Dovahkiin ended Skyrim's internal war, and Thalmor soldiers started fleeing the province, like worms crawling out of rain-soaked earth."_

Paarthurnax found a dry irony in Odahviing's likening the Thalmor soldiers to worms. In the mortal tongue, 'worm' had long been what the Nords called the dragons, to insult them.

Odahviing continued. "_I was curious, so I monitored them. In the end, I found a high lieutenant of the Thalmor. His name was Ondolemar. He told me he led a group called the Justiciars. He told me many things, including, yes, what they want. But when he told me that, I knew he was mad._"

"_My ancient bones will break under the weight of this suspense."_

"_This is my understanding of the Thalmor way of thought. The Altmer people are meant to be divines. They have been cheated by Lorkhan the Missing God, who severed them from the plane of spirits. They wish to return to that plane, by undoing the act which caused them to exist as mortals. By undoing the creation of the world."_

Paarthurnax's first urge was of pure rage. He wanted to shout until his voice was no more, to tear a rift in the heavens that would never close… But he was the master of his urges, not the other way around. The dov stood perfectly still on his perch, and thought in silence.

Thousands of years ago, Paarthurnax had turned against his elder brother, Alduin, and taught the first Tongues, the first mortals to use the power of the Thu'um. He had not enjoyed doing this. He still did not enjoy the outcome of this. But Alduin had threatened the world that they all lived in, and Paarthurnax would not let this world be consumed before his eyes. So he had done all he could do to ensure Alduin's defeat, and in the end, the Dovahkiin had prevailed, the world had been brought back from the precipice of destruction. And now… Now a group of mortals conspired to do the exact same thing as Alduin? Did the fates never run out of ways to threaten Mundus' existence?

Eventually, he said_, "I do not suppose that I could speak to your Ondolemar myself."_

"_Use your imagination, Paarthurnax."_

After his capture at Dragonsreach, Odahviing had come to defer to the Dovahkiin, who did not want dragons rampaging through Skyrim and killing its inhabitants. Paarthurnax imagined there was an exception to this rule for the members of the Thalmor. He considered it a worthy exception.

"_Why, Odahviing, has it taken my calling you to obtain this information?"_ Paarthurnax's voice took on a prickly tone.

"_I thought it unimportant,"_ Odahviing answered with perfect innocence. _"They are mortals. They have a sliver of a fraction of a piece of the power that Alduin had. They are not fated to bring the end times. I see them as little more than an annoyance."_

"_Comprehensible thinking, but flawed. I understand the flaw, as well, for I would share it if I lacked the experiences I have. Not long ago, the Dovahkiin met me on the Throat of the World. He wished to ask for the helping hand of my wisdom. He plans to fight the Thalmor, and he considers them a threat akin to Alduin himself."_

"_But there is one difference between Alduin and the Thalmor. Alduin could not be killed in this world. The Thalmor can."_

"_You give me hope, Odahviing."_

"_Shall we consider the Thalmor a threat on the same level as the World-Eater, then?"_

"_Yes, we shall. The other dragons must be rallied. They will heed the call of my Thu'um."_

"_I must-"_

Something small and sharp pierced the scales of Paarthurnax's belly. An arrow, he knew. Coated in something hostile to all life. He could already feel it working its way into his veins. But his thoughts briefly remained in the greater scale of things.

"_Poison,"_ he breathed. Then, _"Go, Odahviing, fly! Leave! One of us must live to fight for the Dovahkiin!"_

Odahviing must have wanted so badly to fight at Paarthurnax's side. But whoever sent that arrow must have been ready to take on the two dragons they saw conversing. If one of them were to fall, both of them likely would. He took off with that same spectacular agility with which he had landed.

Paarthurnax twisted around to face his attackers. There were only two of them, standing just on the edge of the valley. They wore the armor of the Blades, and the realization of what this meant hit him far harder than the arrow. The Blades were dragon-slayers, as they had been for as long as there were dragons. They were wise to think of him as their enemy, but they were wrong.

"Really, the stupidity," one of the Blades said. Her voice rang painfully loud in Paarthurnax's ears. She was the only one of the two to carry a bow, which meant she had sent the arrow. "Stopping to chat across the river from the Blades' headquarters?"

The poison was the most potent Paarthurnax had ever felt. It deadened his muscles, deadened his wings, his voice. His whole body was going numb. He slipped from the top of the tower. The ground rushed up to meet him.

"Wait. Delphine." The other Blade sounded older. He ran past the one with the bow, right up in front of the dragon, now limply laid on the ground. "This is him! This is Paarthurnax! No other dragon appears this old."

"What's he doing so far from the Throat of the World?" Delphine walked up beside her colleague and put away her bow.

The side of Paarthurnax's head was pressed into the earth, and he could see the two Blades only out of the corner of one eye. His muscles refused to move. The Blades must have known what was happening to him, for they were in no hurry at all to finish him off.

"It doesn't matter," the male Blade said. "This is truly him, there is no doubt about it. If you would do the honors?"

His whole body felt like it was made of stone. Inanimate, immobile. But he had to move. If he could just find one muscle and make it budge, if he could just regain control of some fraction of himself…

Delphine drew a slender, curved sword from her waist. "Very well. Let's not wait any longer." She started to close in. She was no more than five paces away.

This could not be happening. There was simply no way that this could be allowed to happen. He couldn't die now, not with so much left to do! He couldn't let that happen. He had to get up, he had to fight, he _would_ fight—

Paarthurnax lurched forwards and landed flat on his belly. His wings splayed out limply to either side of him. He felt like he had been petrified. He couldn't even tell what he'd done to tell his body to move like that. Delphine jumped back, obviously startled.

"Right," she said, "we can do it that way."

The dovah lurched again, but it went nowhere. Delphine nimbly leapt up onto the bridge of his nose, past his field of vision. He felt her kneeling on the back of his neck. This was the standard way to execute a dragon. Paarthurnax had seen it done a hundred times to his allies. The perpetrator would leap up onto the dragon's neck, the one place that their voice and their jaws simply could not reach, and then drive a point into the back of the dragon's skull. He imagined Delphine gripping her sword's hilt with both hands, preparing for the plunge that would extinguish his life.

With all of his effort, all of his focus, every scrap of energy that he could command, Paarthurnax rolled onto his side. The Blade barely hung on. But he had just rolled onto the start of the valley's slope. He landed on his back, then on the other side, then on his front again, tumbling and crashing down over the rocks of the valley. The earth bludgeoned and battered his limp form. More than once, he very nearly broke the bones of his wings. And as for that Blade? She fell off almost immediately, and landed somewhere beneath him. The arrows all spilled out of her quiver. She might have lost her sword, as well.

"Delphine! _No!_" The older Blade cried out from up above, at the top of the valley.

Paarthurnax closed his eyes just before he landed in the river. The impact almost cost him his consciousness, but he almost didn't feel it at all. The sluggish resistance of the water, the solid foundation of the riverbed… He could not feel any of it. He was still paralyzed.

He opened his eyes once more. There were _fish_ swimming around in front of him. The shimmering wall of the water's surface was below him. It took a moment to realize that this meant he was on his back. A few bubbles of air escaped from his nostrils and fell away to the surface. He could not even truly feel the burning in his lungs. It was so quiet down here. Peaceful, even.

Something very strange then happened. Perhaps it was because of how removed everything seemed, down here, beneath the surface of the river. It mattered not. Paarthurnax could not bring himself to fight to escape the water.

Somehow, this seemed like a much better fate than an execution by one of the Blades. At the bottom of this river, he could pass on in peace. He had been here so long, fighting his own will every day. He tried to deny the effects that this had, but the truth was that in the same way that his body was worn down by the elements, a vital part of his mind was worn down by his discipline. The idea of finally being able to resign seemed appropriate enough.

It seemed like a thousand years ago that he had met the Dovahkiin. It seemed like a distant memory, as far away as his servitude under Alduin himself. All of it was ancient history. How could this matter to him? How could he be expected to destroy himself any more than he already had? He could not.

Perhaps his remains would be discovered one day, perfectly preserved, a specimen for all to learn from. There couldn't be that many dragons remaining in Skyrim. It no longer mattered. Perhaps the world would turn out all right in the end after all. His view of the river's surface began to darken. He could accept that idea.

Then again . . . perhaps the world still needed his help.

The river exploded. A serpentine form of green and gray burst from below, showering water every which way. It unfolded a pair of worn, ragged wings, and landed upon them on the riverbank, blinking the moisture from its milky eyes, coughing up river water onto the mud. Paarthurnax would not submit so soon.

The Blades had reunited not ten paces from him. The woman, Delphine, was missing her helmet, and her bow. But she still carried her sword, and the man looked to have some sort of spell ready.

"He just won't _die!_" Delphine started to advance on Paarthurnax, sword raised.

The dragon's control of his body was still sorely lacking. He wished to simply bite Delphine in half, but all he could do was knock his snout against her, send her splashing into the river where he had just been. The older Blade was left by himself on the land. Before the dragon could decide what to do with him, he lashed out with a vicious lightning spell. The sparks seared through Paarthurnax's scales in ways he did not want to know about, but his whole body was still, in essence, numb. It did not even hurt.

Paarthurnax coughed again and attempted to assess himself. His body was singularly uncooperative. He still could not feel any of the damage that had been done to it. Most of his body refused to respond to him. He focused on his throat, his voice. Could he make his voice answer him? The muscles inside his neck felt like they were not there.

The Blade ceased his lightning spell. Perhaps he had already exhausted his supply of magicka, or perhaps he had another spell in the making. He definitely had another spell. Paarthurnax did not wish to find out what it was. It might have been now or never.

"Yh…" Paarthurnax's attempt at a shout came as more of a sigh. Not good enough. "Yoh… _Yol_."

A burst of flame issued forth from Paarthurnax's jaws. The man stood far enough away that it almost didn't hit him, but it knocked him back, and disrupted whatever it was he had wanted to cast.

Paarthurnax tried again. His voice was returning to him. Force without effort, an unyielding whisper. A whisper to level mountains. "_Yol… toor shul!_"

The flame manifested as an all-consuming jet. Paarthurnax roared with the power of Akatosh's child, the power to break the way the world worked. He could not see the results until it was over, and by then, not even the man's armor had survived. His only remains were a puff of smoke in the air. There was a long, narrow cone of blackened ash where he had burned the stone of the valley wall.

A splashing sound in the river, off to the left downstream, took Paarthurnax's attention. It was Delphine. She waded out onto the bank just in time to witness the power of his Thu'um.

"Esbern!" she cried out, then pointed her sword at Paarthurnax. "You bastard! You'll pay for this!"

"_Yol-toor-shul." _Paarthurnax was quickly regaining control of himself. Delphine jumped and rolled out of the way of his fire, putting a low rock on the riverbank between them. It was enough for her to hide behind, and no more.

The body of a dovah healed far faster than that of a mortal. Even in his old age, Paarthurnax would not stay still from that poison for very long. He was just beginning to feel the pain of all the injuries he had sustained, and he welcomed the sensation. It told him his body was working again, at least in part. His wings still refused to bear his full weight, and he could not properly walk, only drag himself along the riverbank.

Delphine did not move from behind her rock. Paarthurnax knew that she would be waiting for his approach, sword at the ready. Playing into her hands did not interest him, so instead, he pointed his Thu'um at the valley wall.

"_Fus-ro-dah."_

The air itself split with a thunderous crack, and then the rockslide started. The dovah's voice carried the strength to dislodge entire boulders, and down those boulders came. Delphine dove out from behind her hiding place and jumped into the river. Paarthurnax, still sluggish from the poison, followed her in.

He expected her to swim away, find a more opportune place to fight. He would have been able to freeze the river around the Blade with a Thu'um, and she would have been at his mercy. But this did not happen. Delphine turned course and swam straight at him, sword still clutched in one hand. He had no time to react.

What ensued next was a struggle that Paarthurnax himself did not entirely comprehend. He found himself tumbling and turning in the water as Delphine wrestled and clambered over him, the point of her steel scraping over his scales, looking for a place to pierce his flesh. This Blade was so small, and kept crawling onto parts of him that he could not reach. She was impossible to catch. Soon enough, he could not tell up from down. He gasped for air whenever he could.

What Paarthurnax did not know yet was that the current of the river was taking them towards a waterfall.

The first sign was that the flow of water over the dovah's ears began to become louder. The swimming white noise was joined by a distant roar. He knew something was wrong, but he could not spare his environment any attention, for Delphine was furiously struggling to put her blade in his entrails. He had to keep her away, somehow. Then, just by chance, Paarthurnax righted himself enough to raise his head up above the surface, and when he looked downstream, he saw that the river simply _ended_. There was a section of white frothing flow, and then it vanished in the middle of the air. That roar was the sound of the water going over a hundred-foot drop.

With a sweep of the wings, Paarthurnax pushed himself out into the open air, falling alongside the river's water. He had only one chance to make it out of this with an unbroken body. His first urge was to start flapping his wings, start trying to slow his descent, and if he followed this plan, he would have likely have impaled himself on one of the rocks at the bottom. But he was the master of his urges, not the other way around.

The dragon twisted his body until his nose was pointing straight down, in a perfect vertical dive. He let his wings spread open wide, catching the air, naturally setting in the position of flight. The rocks were rushing up towards him. They would strike his body in perhaps three seconds. His skull would take the first of the blow, and it would likely break his neck.

At the very last moment, Paarthurnax pulled up. His wings took flight, and bore his weight just as they needed to. He leveled out at such a low height that his chest just barely splashed in the river water. His body ached and stung with a hundred wounds, but he was alive. He was very much, truly, undeniably alive. And behind him, in the chaos of the waterfall, Delphine's body was broken in two over the sharpest of the rocks.

Paarthurnax recognized the two late Blades as being the last of their kind. The Dovahkiin had attempted to enlist their support during the campaign against Alduin, but the arrangement had collapsed when Delphine and Esbern learned that the Dovahkiin and Paarthurnax were also working together. After all, Paarthurnax had to answer for his ancient crimes, and more than that, he was a dragon. By their logic, he had to die.

This meant that in all likelihood, the group known as the Blades had just come to their final end. Paarthurnax did not regret this. They had existed to slay dragons, nothing more. They had not existed to serve the Dragonborn, or even to protect the world. They existed to kill creatures like Paarthurnax himself, for better or for worse. Their absence in days to come would, indeed, prove to be simply convenient. The Dovahkiin now led the effort to protect this world. His cause mattered more than anyone's, and creatures like Paarthurnax himself were now to serve as the Dovahkiin's allies.

**If it's not obvious, the italicized dialogue was a translation of Dragon-language speech. I felt it would be preferable to sifting through the wiki, cobbling together what sentences I could, and then having an essentially incomprehensible swathe of conversation.**


	13. Noster 3

Fredas, 9:48 AM, 26th of Evening Star, 4E 201

Alftand Animonculory

Everything had changed in the past week. Iseus had told Noster that he was going to be the Steward of Blackreach. This wasn't quite true. He was the Steward, it seemed, of Alftand.

Alftand was a sprawling underground complex. Like a few other Dwemer ruins, it had a massive animonculory, a storage and maintenance sort of site for the automatons. Its centerpiece was a huge stone room, lit by bright white lamps, held up with massive stone pillars, and filled with pipes, gears, and metal shelves holding dormant and broken automatons. One of the first things the Dragonborn had ordered was that the automatons be melted down to scrap.

The Dwemer hadn't left many usable metalworking tools behind, so the Dragonborn had quietly requisitioned a smelting furnace from the College mages, and now it sat in the corner, behind a few empty racks of shelves, being tended by a couple of workers, burning with magical fire and turning automatons into ingots.

Noster was touring the animonculory with a wood elf he'd met a week ago, went by the name of Lenve, though Noster had heard the Dragonborn calling him Malborn. This fellow seemed to know quite a lot about the Dwemer, but more than that, he seemed to really know how to work with people, so Noster had put him in charge of the metalworking efforts.

Now they walked side by side through the rows and columns of shelves, past the odd worker scurrying about. This whole place was filled with the din of machines, both old and new. Noster was keeping Lenve on his right. His left eye, after all, was still blind.

"We're actually a few days ahead of schedule," Lenve was saying. "There's only a couple thousand pounds of scrap left to smelt, then we can move to stage two."

"That's good to hear, but if we haven't set up the forges yet, you'll end up just sitting around with the ingots until we have," Noster answered. He and Lenve were both wearing short-sleeved summer wear. It was awfully hot in the animonculory. Made it hard to think.

"Well, there's really not that much to a forge. Anvils and tools, I suppose, and… Fuel's not a concern, I suppose…"

The mages from Winterhold had been doing a fantastic job of helping out. The more resources Noster had to drag in from Whiterun or wherever, the easier a time the Thalmor would have of figuring out what they were up to, just by taking note of what materials were being shipped.

"I'll see about getting you all the tools for blacksmithing. Can I count on your men to set up the rest?"

"All ten of them? You got it."

"You'll get more for the next stage. It's not like we're short on workers. I'm sure we can find the ones who know their way around a blacksmith's forge."

"Once we're on to that part, I may want to get involved in a different project. I'm no smith." This was fair enough. When Lenve had showed up, there hadn't been so much manpower to go around.

"I'll see if that can work. Anything else I should hear about?"

"Well, the men dismantling the automatons are getting a whole lot of things besides metal. Soul gems, dynamo cores, that type of thing."

"The Dragonborn will want the soul gems. Let's just keep the dynamo cores and the rest of it in storage. Maybe at some point we can power something with them, who knows?"

"So just put it back on the shelves?"

"That'll do. That's not our priority, the scrap metal is."

The uppermost portion of the animonculory led to a sort of atrium, ringed by wide, shallow, smooth ramps going upwards. There were doors off to different places, at different heights. All of the farming and crafting and such went on here. A few guards were on patrol. At the bottom of all the ramps, a man stood, waiting.

"I'll take my leave, then," Lenve quickly said, then turned back towards the forge room.

The man was one of those beautifully masculine fair-haired Nord soldiers, wearing the blue tunic and mail of the Stormcloaks. He turned and nodded to Noster as he approached. This was Ralof of Riverwood. A man whom the Dragonborn had put in charge of… Something that Noster didn't know about. It was on a need-to-know sort of basis.

"Ralof," Noster called out across the atrium floor. A few guards glanced at him.

"Eagle-Eye," Ralof said. He was the only person who called Noster that, and the only person Noster would let get away with it. Ralof just called everyone by their titles. It was some kind of honorable Nord thing. Iseus was the Dragonborn, Noster was the Eagle-Eye, Lenve was probably the Woody-Woodface or something, whatever.

"I thought Iseus would be up here," Noster said as he got within regular talking distance.

"The Dragonborn is down in the cathedral, I think."

Which meant he was actually in Blackreach. But the existence of that entire titanic cavern was also a need-to-know matter.

"He's a very busy man," Noster sighed. "Probably learning some ancient knowledge about how to kill the Thalmor by himself."

Ralof snorted. "Pft. Aye, let's go with that. We can manage things up with here just fine ourselves."

"Speaking of which, what are you doing up here in the animonculory, anyway?"

"Waiting," Ralof said without elaborating.

Noster gestured to a stone bench, and the two of them sat down, Noster on Ralof's left. A few workers were pushing a cart full of odd-looking plant things down the ramp. Sights like that were awfully common around here. They spent a few minutes just watching the passersby. Quite a lot of Alftand's passages converged in this room.

A week ago, the newcomers had started coming in. The first group to show up was a wagon train from Windhelm. Something like three score Stormcloak veterans. The Dragonborn had given them a warm welcome, of course, and seen about giving them someplace to live in Alftand's lower levels. That food from Whiterun had come in handy while they figured out the ancient Dwemer hydro-farms. Lenve had estimated the farms could provide for tens of thousands of people, if they could be restored to working order.

Machinery wasn't really Noster's province, so he'd tasked a team of the most technically savvy people he could find to investigate just how all this Dwemer machinery worked, and in a lot of cases, just what it did. So far, they'd figured out that a lot of the pipes running through the city were for recycling water and air. The machinery was so powerful that no one had an estimate for how many people it could provide for.

Incidentally, Alftand's population had skyrocketed over the past week. Every day, more people came in, from Windhelm, Winterhold, Riften, Dawnstar, and a bunch of places Noster had never heard of. Today, Alftand's population was a bit over a thousand. At first, Noster had had his hands full finding places for them all to stay, and then he'd had his hands full putting them all to work. There was plenty of work to do down here. Restoring old equipment, clearing away debris, melting down metal, and training. So much training. Alftand actually had a working city guard now. It was so strange.

"I've heard you're a veteran legionnaire," Ralof said.

"You heard correctly. I was a scout. I got this at Anvil." Noster turned his head towards Ralof to show his milky white left eye. "I suppose you're a veteran too, aren't you?"

"Heh, well, I didn't have the chance to serve in any great battles. I think we were going to attack Whiterun eventually, if the Jarl were to side against us. But then the Dragonborn came in and… Well."

"You don't seem to mind serving under him, considering."

"It's complicated." Ralof rested his elbows on his knees and rubbed his eyes. "He killed Ulfric Stormcloak. He just walked into the Palace of the Kings and chopped the man's damn head off. … But he's …"

The Nord regained a bit of his composure and sat back up. "When I heard the news of what happened to Jarl Ulfric, I didn't know what to do, what to think. Truly. The Dragonborn had just destroyed the rebellion singlehandedly. He literally decapitated it. But then I read one of those copies of the, uh, Thalmor dossier, right? That's what it's called?"

Noster nodded.

"The dossier on Ulfric," Ralof continued, nodding back. "And when I read that… Well, imagine if it had been about General Tullius. If the Thalmor thought of him as just a… Tool of theirs."

Noster tried to imagine it. He'd never served directly under Tullius, but he just substituted the men he'd served in the Great War. What if they had been someone else's 'assets', as the dossier had put it? What if he'd been working for his enemy's pawns without knowing it? How would he even live with himself?

The veteran screwed up his face. "I think I get it."

"Aye, you do," Ralof nodded grimly. "That's how it was for me. And all of the sudden, the man who took Ulfric out of action was the hero of the Stormcloaks. He pulled the Thalmor's wool off from over our eyes. And… Who knows, maybe Skyrim and Cyrodiil really are stronger as one."

"Well, that explains why there are so many Stormcloaks here."

"Some of us joined the ranks of the Legion, but I'd rather serve the Dragonborn. He and I go back to the first dragon attack in Helgen."

Noster gave Ralof a curious look.

Ralof crossed his legs and leaned back on the bench. "Here, let me tell you a story."

"There's a little mining village in southern Eastmarch, I think it was called Darkwater, uh… Something. Not important. I was there with the other members of my division, escorting Jarl Ulfric. Now, there was this Imperial convoy passing through, and we wanted to ambush it. But it turns out that it was an ambush for us. The legionnaires were waiting with crossbows. Most of my men fell in the opening volley. I didn't want to surrender, but… They took the few of us who survived prisoner. The only problem was that they took everyone who'd been near the carts. There was some thief who'd just happened to be trying to take one of the horses when we came in, and there was the Dragonborn. I honestly think he was just passing through. But the Legion put him in binds anyway. As far as they could tell, I suppose, he was part of the rebellion, like me.

"They took us in those same carts of the convoy, all the way to Helgen. I imagine if we'd just been regular soldiers, they might've executed us on the spot, or else shipped us off to some frozen prison someplace. But Jarl Ulfric was with us, so we all went to Helgen. The Imperials had a garrison there. General Tullius himself was waiting for us."

Noster took advantage of the pause in the story. "Why was Jarl Ulfric in an ambush?"

"It was a spur-of-the-moment thing, we were on our way to Riften. Anyway, Tullius was there, and so were some of the Thalmor. You know, looking back at it, I wonder if the Thalmor would've done something to sabotage the execution before Ulfric could be killed. Just to keep the war going. I can't think of any other reason they'd send Justiciars to watch an execution that actually followed some kind of due process. That's not how they work.

"We were all sentenced to death. Truly. Even the horse thief. He made a run for it, but he didn't make it twenty paces before the archers got him. I… I think they'd made a list of the members of my group? They knew I was Ralof of Riverwood, even though I hadn't said anything to them. And the Dragonborn, of course… He wasn't on the list, because he wasn't a Stormcloak, but they weren't going to let him go on account of a little bureaucracy error, he went to the block like the rest of us. I still remember the look on his face. He didn't care what they were saying, he looked so focused, his eyes were darting all over. I think he was studying the situation, or something.

"When it came the Dragonborn's turn to… Well, you know, to be executed, seventeen kinds of hell broke loose. One of the legionnaires started escorting him to the block, and just before they were going to push him onto his knees, he… Oh, divines, what did he do… He pulled the legionnaire's sword out of his scabbard, with his hands still tied in front of him, mind, in a sort of reverse grip, so he could cut his bonds. The captain ordered the archers to stop him, but he did this sort of arm-twisting maneuver that put the legionnaire between him and the archers, used him as a human shield. Poor legionnaire, he must've taken five arrows to the chest. I honestly think the Dragonborn was going to kill every single one of them, even the Justiciars, maybe even Tullius. Then the dragon came.

"It landed on the tower right over the executioner's block. There was this clap of thunder, and then the sky turned red, truly. There was fire raining down on Helgen. The dragon itself, I don't think it any damage at all compared to all those fireballs. Of course, all of us, the rest of the prisoners, just ran for it. I'm not sure where the Dragonborn went. I didn't see him again until last week. Ulfric made it back to Windhelm, of course, I suppose Tullius made it back to Solitude, and… I don't know what happened with the Justiciars. I hope the dragon ate them."

Ralof uncrossed his legs and sighed. "And that's how I met the Dragonborn. I've heard that the dragon in Helgen was actually Alduin the World-Eater himself. I couldn't tell you what he was doing there."

"Maybe he realized the Dragonborn was with you," Noster offered. "Why wouldn't he want to kill the one fated to destroy him?"

"Because fate isn't so easily shaken off, perhaps. How did you meet him? The Dragonborn, I mean." Ralof wiped his brow. It was awfully warm in the animonculory. Wearing a uniform designed to be worn in the tundra probably wasn't the greatest idea, though it was worth noting Ralof's arms were mostly bare. Ralof's thick, muscular, manly arms. He could probably have any woman he wanted.

Noster chuckled. "Nothing as dramatic as your story. The Dragonborn bumped into me in Solitude when he was on his way to give Tullius the dossier on Ulfric. I was nothing more than a beggar back then. Feels like a lifetime ago. He decided to take me along on his adventures. I didn't know why until he took me here, to, uh… Alftand." Noster had almost said Blackreach. "This place I'm supervising. Now I'm here, I-"

"Oh, sorry, this is my cue." Ralof pointed across the atrium. A few men were bringing a cart out of the animonculory, starting up the ramp, towards one of the higher doors. The cart was covered by a canvas tarp. Noster couldn't tell what was inside. "It's been a pleasure, Eagle-Eye, I hope we can continue this soon."

"Yeah, enjoy yourself," Noster said absently as Ralof walked off.

And with that, the veteran was left sitting by himself. He knew he had a mountain of work to go attend to, but he didn't move just yet. No contemplative insights came to him. He wasn't even really thinking. He was so tired. Every day, he'd been doing more administration than he'd thought possible. He had an army of scribes, archaeologists, whatever, all at his disposal, and still, it felt like he was doing this whole thing himself. If this was what leaders had to go through, Noster didn't understand how anyone could ever want more power.


	14. Ancano 3

Ancano had to move faster. The Justiciars were coming.

He'd been scrambling over the rocky hills of the Reach for as long as he could remember. He almost couldn't recall why, until an ice spike sailed past his shoulder. They were practically right on top of him. His magicka was gone. He couldn't cast a single spell to fight back. He had to get away.

But before he could make it over the next hill, something hard hit him in the back. He landed on all fours in the dirt, and before he could get back up, a boot slammed into his ribcage. The breath left his body. He landed on his back, squinting into the sun, coughing and gasping. When he looked down at himself, that boot was planting down hard on his chest. He realized his robes were smoldering.

The Justiciar was saying something, and grinning smugly at him. Ancano's robes were burning now. They fell away from him, baring his pallid flesh. It looked so ugly out in the open sunlight.

Ancano wanted to say something like, "you're all animals," but no words came forth. The Justiciar leaned down over him, sinking onto one knee, and reached out. His cold, clammy hands started to press on Ancano's bare collarbones.

Other figures were moving over him, but he couldn't see who they were. He couldn't make out any of their faces, in fact. This was so insane. He didn't deserve this. He didn't deserve to die. Why would they do this to him?

The Justiciar moved his hands down Ancano's body, sizing him up ever so slowly. It felt so disgusting. Resistance was out of the question. It hardly even occurred to him. He hadn't done anything. He didn't know why they would put him through this.

"Goodbye," the Justiciar said softly. Ancano started to panic. He was breathing too hard. His head spun. There was a sharp ringing in his ears. It hurt so much.

It hurt so, so much. It would never end.

The ringing was a magic-regulated clock by his bed. Ancano reached out groggily and slapped the button on top.

Sundas, 6:00 AM, 28th of Evening Star, 4E 201

Understone Keep

The room was small to the point of claustrophobia. There was a single bed, in which Ancano lay—it was less of a bed than a low stone platform—and some basic plumbing utilities. No other furniture. Everything was stone and metal, the floor, walls, ceiling, latrine, faucet, door, all of it. Unseen machinery was constantly thrumming away behind the walls. The single dwarven light on the ceiling cast everything into sharp shadows. But none of this particularly bothered Ancano, because it was a room for one. He shared it with nobody. For this, he would have settled for sleeping in a broom closet.

The stone surface left his body sore where he had laid upon it. Ancano sat up and rubbed the affected areas, groaning almost inaudibly. This was nothing like his cozy little bed back in Winterhold. He did not understand how the Dwemer had put up with sleeping like this. Surely their grasp of reason and sciences would have let them invent a cushion.

He heaved himself out of bed, started absently washing himself in the dwarven metal basin, attending to his routine morning things. It was hard to concentrate. The elf had slept poorly. He splashed some of the cool water in his face, toweled off, and looked at himself in the mirror. His yellow Altmer skin looked the same as always. The sleep deprivation didn't quite show. This was fortunate. He could not afford to look weak in front of the others.

A little grooming and dressing later, he was out the door, striding confidently through the passages of the keep. The next step in his routine of discipline was breakfast. Understone Keep's dining hall, where the other officers were, was full of conversations he hated, and it wasn't as though he would go break his fast with the enlisted elves in the soldiers' garrison. So, he obtained his food from the kitchen himself, put another plate on top of it as a makeshift lid, and took it someplace better.

There was a balcony, accessible only through the Dwemer museum, which overlooked the entire city. The view was simply incredible. He could see so many little streets and buildings from here. The balcony wasn't too high, and it was possible to make out people's faces. He had found he liked to sit back and watch them, wonder what silly little things they were all busy with down there.

The stone platform was very narrow, perhaps seven or eight feet wide at most, and the stone railings were not terribly high. Its leftmost portion was a bridge over the river feeding the city's water reservoir, and where there was the rock face of the mountain framing the back of most of the balcony, that portion was backed by a waterfall. Ancano avoided that area. It was a beautiful spectacle, but he had little interest in being sprayed with freezing water while he ate.

The right side of the balcony was a doorless arch to a small enclosed area. There was a door to some private tower or other at the far end, but before that, there was a little alcove in the wall, host to a modest window. From here, Ancano had a clear sight of the Temple of Dibella, situated on its crest of rock, the guard's tower just to its right. In the early morning, the sun would be coming up in the east, and the temple and tower would be silhouettes against the sky. It was the perfect vantage point to begin his day from.

But when Ancano arrived at his spot, he was rewarded with a jolt of dismay. He wasn't alone up here. The leader of the 14th Unit, Commander Lestra, was already sitting in the alcove, leaning against the wall just where he liked to. And unlike the general, she had no breakfast with her. She was going to put Ancano through a conversation where he was rudely putting food in his face and she was waiting patiently. Thalmor officers loved to play head games like this.

"Good morning, Ancano," Lestra said serenely, not bothering to look away from the window.

Ancano took a deep breath. He would not let his irritation show. That would be an act of weakness. "Good morning," he replied flatly, as he moved to sit down across from her. Plates in one hand, mug and napkin in the other. This was not as dignified as he would like. "Have you not broken your fast yet?"

"That's hardly your concern, is it?" Lestra was still looking out the window at nothing in particular.

"Mm." Ancano paid her no mind. He'd set his mug on the floor by him, and was balancing his plate in his lap to remove the improvised lid-plate. Both of them were made of dwarven metal, and still very warm to the touch. The lid-plate was covered in droplets of condensed water. He slid it beneath the actual plate and feasted his eyes.

The chefs from the kitchen had graciously provided him with a lavish breakfast. A mug of steaming tea; a soft-boiled rock warbler egg in a dainty little egg cup, covered with a lid and on its side so it would fit between the plates; a slice of buttered toast, cut into strips; a fresh apple, sliced and dusted with cinnamon; and a serving of fresh bacon, which reminded Ancano that whatever else was true about the Reachmen, they indisputably knew how to eat. Until some thirty seconds ago, his mouth had been watering at the opportunity to indulge in all of this. Now his appetite was making an ungraceful, poorly-timed retreat.

Still, he righted the egg cup and started eating. His silverware had been sandwiched between the plates along with the food, and he had to wipe it off with his napkin before using it. Undignified, again.

Ancano did not speak until he'd gotten the first mouthful of egg-dipped toast down. "So, what can I do for you, Commander?"

"We need to talk." Lestra's voice was full of frost.

Ancano swallowed, and it wasn't to get any food down. He had a few ideas what Lestra might have come up here for.

The transition to Thalmor custody of the city had been surprisingly smooth. Ancano inferred that Markarth had already changed hands a few times in the past decades. This had been an Imperial military center, and the Thalmor had run things tightly. Day-to-day affairs were essentially the same. The city guards had even been allowed to continue overseeing the city themselves. They only answered to gold anyway.

There was only one little problem. It was the reason Ancano was still here in Markarth instead of out in some field camp somewhere. The native Bretons of the Reach had been fighting the Nords, the Empire, whomever, for years. They called themselves the Forsworn. And even with the Empire gone, they were _everywhere_.

Ancano's understanding of the Forsworn was that they were, essentially, savages. They lived in the hills of the Reach in ramshackle camps. They lived off the land, trading with no one. Their armor was made of animal hides, and their weapons were crafted from bones. Two weeks or so ago, he recalled, Elevir had warned him that the Reach was the most dangerous of the nine holds of Skyrim. That the locals were a genuine threat, somehow.

And at the time, this had seemed like a gross exaggeration on Elevir's part. Like an officer who had barely avoided death escaping Skyrim, who was stepping into the shoes of a deceased Prime Justiciar, feeling understandably but excessively paranoid. But in the opening days of the invasion, one in three Thalmor scouts failed to return to Markarth, and the rest almost always had terrifying stories to tell.

The Forsworn wielded more than bone axes and clubs. They had formed some kind of alliance with the repulsive half-human creatures they called hagravens, to give the Bretons the hagravens' crude but effective command of magic. Even this unexpected advantage would be insufficient in a proper fight with Thalmor wizards, but the Forsworn insisted on using entirely unpredictable ambush tactics. A formation of troops would be walking along a road, and suddenly there would be a hail of poisonous arrows from nowhere, and some massive fire spells for good measure, and the road would become a meat grinder. It was proving virtually impossible to secure a foothold in the Reach. Lestra had every reason to be impatient.

"What is it, then, Commander?" Ancano braced himself for another horror story of insane barbarians of the hills.

Then Lestra replied, "Dragons."

Ancano stopped. He sat, motionless, for a few long seconds. That had not been an expected answer. Slowly, he resumed eating. "I thought the Dragonborn defeated them," he said.

"The Dragonborn defeated their leader. At the time of the civil war's end, Imperial reports indicated at least fifteen dragons separately documented in Skyrim. The actual number may be much higher, but the fact remains that the Dragonborn himself filled their leader's power vacuum."

"And now the Dragonborn is directing the dragons' wrath upon us."

"Indeed. There have been only a few reports so far, but it is no isolated incident, and no coincidence. The dragons are specifically targeting Thalmor agents."

Ancano snapped off part of an apple slice with his teeth. He loved when these were fresh and crisp enough to do that. "Oh, where are the Blades when you need them?"

Lestra finally turned her head and shot the general a withering glare.

"I'm not certain," Ancano muttered, then stopped to finish the apple slice. "I'm not certain why a dragon should be much different than anything else we fight."

"Two things, mainly. The first is the same problem that we have with the Forsworn. They are self-sufficient creatures."

This needed no explanation. In the First War with the Empire, engaging the legionnaires head-on had been something of a last resort. The most effective strategy was to attack the Legion's supply routes, logistical hubs, industrial centers, things to that effect. The Forsworn did not trade with anyone outside their villages, and their 'industry' was limited to crafting primitive weapons in their tents. They had no such strategic targets to pursue. The only valid strategy was to locate and attack their actual villages, which was extremely dangerous.

"Well… They have their mountaintop lairs, don't they?" Ancano tilted up his tea mug to drain the last of it.

"That's the second thing. Are you familiar with the term 'power projection'?"

This did need explanation. "Enlighten me."

"Power projection, General, is the ability of a military belligerent to fight abroad. We happen to be exercising some power projection of our own by fighting in Skyrim when our home is Alinor. Our intelligence reports that every known dragon lair in the Reach has been abandoned. They've regrouped someplace to the east, too far away to find. And it so happens that the dragons are extremely mobile. They move faster than any vehicle of land or sea. Their capacity for power projection is unmatched."

"Then our only opportunity to attack them is when they—"

"Attack us. Yes." Lestra finished the sentence along with him. "They have a sense of self-preservation. Wherever a section of the 14th Unit is, or even wherever a large concentration of our troops is, the dragons are not."

"Then how bad is it?"

"We have had five confirmed dragon attacks by at least two separate dragons. None of them resulted in the dragon's death or capture. They seem to have assumed we were already hunting them. The total casualties from the attacks is around two hundred fifty, so far."

"I will keep this in mind," Ancano said, "but the strategy I would use against dragon ambushes is not terribly unlike the strategy already in place against the same from the Forsworn. This brings me back to the question of what I can do for you."

"Whatever you can to keep the members of the 14th from being killed."

"That is fair," Ancano smirked.

Lestra did not return his amusement. "There are too many ambushes to fend off. The farther we venture from the walls of this city, the thinner our defenses grow."

"I want the Forsworn villages destroyed," Ancano said flatly. "You can tell this to your mages if you do desire. I want them rooted out."

"The Forsworn agents we've captured refuse to talk."

Now it was Ancano's turn to give Lestra a contemptuous look.

"In time, maybe," Lestra shrugged. "It would be convenient."

"It is a high priority, but more likely than not, the Forsworn will move camp as soon as they realize one of their members has been captured alive. Then they'll turn the previous site into a death trap, doubtlessly."

"I'm open to ideas. You _are_ the General in this situation."

"Scorched earth," Ancano mumbled.

"Come again?"

"Scorched earth," he repeated, more audibly. "You know what power projection is. You must know what that is."

Lestra nodded gravely. "I have been concerned it would make those who are neutral towards us now decide to take action against us."

Ancano burst out laughing. Really, he did. That was amazing. Thalmor officers probably weren't supposed to laugh, but… "Are you serious? Everybody here already _hates_ us!"

Lestra waited for him to stop, then said, "Very well. I will notify our elves of the change in plans."

"That's all I ask. Oh, and here." Ancano stacked his silverware, mug and napkin on top of his empty plates, and then thrust them all into Lestra's arms. "If you could just get that for me."

He got up and walked off before the commander had a chance to react. As soon as his face was out of sight, he smiled with silent mirth. That was the best thing he'd gotten to do all week.

Scorched earth referred to the strategy of destroying anything the enemy might need. Food, water, shelter, anything was a valid target. In order to exact this on a group as decentralized as the Forsworn, they would likely have to lay waste to the entire Reach. Ancano hoped it wouldn't result in too extensive damage. With the passing days, he'd come to almost like it here.

Then again, none of this really mattered. Eventually, the Thalmor would undo the entire mortal plane, and Ancano would ascend to his divine birthright. That was a nice idea.

As he returned to the interior of the keep, the elf couldn't help but wonder how Lestra had known he was up here. He had told no one of this tendency of his. But this wasn't exactly a mystery. The balcony was only a few stories above the streets. All someone would have to do was stand out there in the morning and look up. Really, he was lucky no assassins had tried to loose an arrow at him by now.

The moment he was indoors, he speed-walked around a few corners, to make sure Lestra wouldn't catch up with him, then stopped in a side room of the Dwemer museum to rest. His poor night's sleep was still affecting him. He sat heavily against a stone shelf. Rubbed his face in his hands, took a deep breath in, did his best to focus.

"You all right, sir?"

Ancano lowered his hands and looked up. A uniformed Thalmor wizard was peering in worriedly through the door. He had his hood down, and his pale hair was parted like a Nord's. Ancano guessed that he had been associated with the Justiciars of Skyrim before the invasion.

Ancano couldn't quite bring himself to act testy. Even with that annoying hairstyle. "Quite well," he said softly. "Just a bit of trouble sleeping last night. Burdens of leadership. That sort of thing."

"You could pay the local alchemist a visit for a remedy," the wizard said. "If you're very brave. Or willing to feed it to someone else first, check for poison."

Ancano cracked a smile. "What's your name, soldier?"

"Major Sielar, sir."

It made sense that Ancano didn't know this elf. Ancano's official rank was general. He'd become acquainted with his lieutenant generals, one of whom was Elevir, though everybody still called him the Prime Justiciar. The rank of major would be quite a bit lower in the chain of command than him. He did not know how many majors were in Markarth, but it was probably too many for him to know personally.

"A pleasure to meet you, major. What are you doing in here?" He had meant to ask this question immediately, but then Sielar had made that remark about the alchemist. Ancano had not seen any other Thalmor agents in the museum before.

"Looking for you, actually." Of course. "There's a matter from before Jarl Ulfric's assassination. I think it deserves to be brought to your attention," Sielar said.

"What is this about?" Ancano frowned.

"Well… I'm aware we're having some… Troubles in the Reach. This isn't quite about them. This is about a less public matter. At least, it's not very public yet."

"Do you wish to move someplace quieter?" Ancano had a hunch that this would be one of those kinds of conversations. Particularly because he was being approached by some random subordinate, and not by Elevir, who usually supervised these matters.

"Please." Sielar waited at the door for Ancano to exit, then followed along.

The Dwemer museum was already quiet enough, but Ancano took the added precaution of bringing them to the first room he could find with a solid door. It turned out to be someone's bedroom. By its appearance, it had been abandoned following the invasion. Ancano was confident enough that no one would listen in on them.

There were some stone benches to sit on, but in order to prevent Sielar from getting the wrong idea about this conversation, the general remained standing once he'd closed the doors behind them. He wanted to fold his arms over his chest, but in the same vein of body language, he settled for loosely clasping his hands together in front of him.

Ancano and Sielar turned to each other at the same time. There was a brief pause as they waited for the other to start the conversation.

"So. What is it?" Ancano said once he realized Sielar was waiting for him.

"Before I was integrated into the Aldmeri Army's chain of command, I served as a Justiciar here in Skyrim," Sielar said. Of course, again.

"Yes, so I gathered. Go on."

"I was involved in the investigation of the Dragonborn," he started to say.

"Oh…" Ancano closed his eyes and turned away to the side. He wanted to slap his hand against his forehead. Of course, of course, of course this would be about the damned Dragonborn. He was like a living Talos to these people. Once his composure was restored, he turned back to Sielar. "The Dragonborn?"

Sielar blinked and frowned with bemusement, but continued regardless. "Yes. He wandered into our sphere of attention the moment he killed the dragon at the Western Watchtower, outside Whiterun. But it was not until he attacked the Thalmor Embassy that we recognized him as a definite hostile, and even that was a stroke of luck. One of the survivors witnessed him using his shout."

"I thought he wore some distinctive suit of armor?"

"My understanding is that it did not exist at that time."

"Ah."

"The moment the Justiciars received word of the attack, we conducted a standard aggressive investigation. The results were… Better than nothing, at least. We captured a number of his known associates, and though some of them escaped during the retreat from Skyrim, we did not lose all of them."

"Where are they?" Now Ancano folded his arms. He had far more questions than he was asking.

"We only managed to hold onto one of them. I supervised the interrogation of this prisoner myself, and since then, I've been in charge of custody. The only superior officer involved was the late Prime Justiciar Ondolemar."

"You should have taken this to Elevir, then."

"I considered it, but I decided to go to you first. During peacetime, Ondolemar was my highest-ranking superior. Now, you are."

"Point conceded. I am honored to receive this information. Continue."

"The interrogation was a lengthy, difficult process. Far more than normal. But you would be impressed with the results. The prisoner possessed an unusually apt understanding of the Dragonborn, and his methodology. I'm not sure we have a willing asset to directly control, but after the procedures I executed, it is entirely likely."

"So who is this person?"

"The closest associate to my location when I received the new orders. Her name is Lydia."


	15. Brynjolf 3

Loredas, 2:40 PM, 27th of Evening Star, 4E 201

Whiterun

Before leaving the College of Winterhold, Brynjolf had received practically a treasure chest of parting gifts from the Arch-Mage. Some of it, he wore around his neck and on his index finger. Truth be told, wearing some of this stuff, he felt like a _god_. He was pretty sure Aren had just rooted through the College's enchanted things and picked the best things a thief could use.

Some of it wasn't so easy to work with. It all fit in his pack, of course, but… One of the things he'd been given was essentially a big iron door knocker. Its general shape, size and weight reminded him of a horseshoe, though it was more of a smooth circle. Arch-Mage Aren had called it the Torc of Labyrinthian. Whatever that meant. He'd looked extremely depressed whenever the topic of Labyrinthian came up, so Brynjolf had decided to just not ask. He'd already gotten enough information, and he was from the Thieves Guild. Getting by without asking questions was a specialty of his.

The ride to Whiterun didn't take him too terribly long. He just had to take his poor horse out of Winterhold, through the endless barren tundra, past Dawnstar, then south through Hjaalmarch, then… Well, he was happy to rest once he got to Whiterun. Day after day of riding. When he arrived, he wanted to just get a room at the inn and sleep the rest of the day away. But he had important things to do. No rest. Just walking instead of riding.

Brynjolf left his hooded cloak with his horse in the stables. Beneath, he was wearing regular commoner's clothes, plus a light, loose long-sleeved sort of jacket. It'd be best if he didn't stick out here. Divines knew Whiterun was crawling with spies. With that in mind, he wore a dagger beneath his jacket, just in case. He entered town with nothing else but his canvas pack slung over one shoulder.

He ignored the shops, and the houses. If he were here on Thieves Guild business, he would have stopped to meet every single merchant he could, just in the interest of keeping the guild's name fresh. But he wasn't. In fact, it would be best if no one knew he was here at all.

Today, his destination was Jorrvaskr. The mead hall of the legendary Companions. It was almost at the top of the hill Whiterun was built on, only a stone's throw away from the gates of Dragonsreach itself. In this city, or in any city, now that Brynjolf thought about it, Jorrvaskr was like a plank of wood in a pile of bricks. Really, it was basically all made of wood. Brynjolf was pretty sure the roof was just the hull of a sailing ship turned upside-down.

This crazy little ship building thing, though, happened to be the oldest building on the whole damn hill. The Companions had been here long before anyone else. Skyrim's guild of honorable warriors. Way back in the days of old, Ysgramor's original Companions had numbered five hundred, but this place couldn't have housed more than fifty. Maybe Skyrim was just short on honor.

There were some stone steps to ascend, and a square wooden arch to pass beneath, and then the doors inside were right there. This place was unlocked all day. Brynjolf supposed that they didn't really need locks, given who was inside. He closed his eyes for a few seconds, letting them adjust to a lower light, then stepped inside.

The inside of Jorrvaskr looked basically like any other mead hall. There was a massive hearth in the center of it all. It filled the whole room, all the wooden walls and beams, with a soft orange light. Long straight tables surrounded the hearth on three sides, crammed with delicious-looking food and drink. There were a few folks in armor sitting and chatting at the tables. Most of them looked up at Brynjolf as he pushed the doors open. The conversations suddenly hushed.

"Who's this?" a redheaded girl with stripes of war paint on her face said.

A massively set man wearing steel armor got up and addressed Brynjolf. "Can we help you?" He spoke in a sort of weathered growl. Between that, his long shaggy mane of hair, and the huge splotches of black eyeliner on his face, he looked like some kind of ghoulish beast.

"Ah… Yes." Brynjolf had to snap himself out of it. These crazy scary folk were just the honorable Companions, no need to fear. "My name is Brynjolf. I'm here on the behalf of the Dragonborn."

"Brynjolf, as in from the Thieves Guild?" The big fellow narrowed his eyes accusingly. "We've had run-ins with the guild before."

"I'm afraid you're correct, lad. Things have changed a lot over the past weeks," Brynjolf said. He wasn't that easily intimidated. Thieves had to be versatile, and hold up to a lot of things.

"What do you want from us?" The man was blunt. Brynjolf appreciated that.

"I wished to speak to the Harbinger. Is Kodlak Whitemane here?"

"Kodlak Whitemane is _dead_. Where have you been, that you didn't manage to hear that?"

Another man had left the tables, and was walking up to stand by the first. He looked like the first man's little brother. Exact same outfit, even down to the creepy makeup, but a bit shorter, and with shorter hair. He spoke with a much more refined sort of manner. "Forgive Farkas. He is a stalwart defender of Jorrvaskr, that much is certain. I am Vilkas. I am Harbinger now."

"Pleasure to meet you, Vilkas," Brynjolf smiled, reaching out and shaking the man's hand. "Farkas," he continued, repeating the gesture with the larger man, who looked awfully confused.

"You mentioned something about the Dragonborn?" Vilkas asked.

"Yes. He's… Isn't there someplace more private we can talk, lad?"

Vilkas started to say something, but Farkas interrupted him. "Wait. How do we know you're actually with the Dragonborn? All we know you're with is the Thieves Guild. That's not a good sign."

"He told me someone might ask that," Brynjolf chuckled. "Okay, uh… He gave me something to say. It's, ah... Remember the giant."

Farkas' mouth opened. He said nothing.

"Ahh," Vilkas said, then laughed. "Right! Right, I remember now. You've definitely spoken to him, then."

"What does it mean?" Brynjolf frowned suddenly. "He didn't tell me."

"It's how we met. There was a rogue giant just outside Whiterun, we had to take him down, and the Dragonborn put an arrow in the giant's neck from across a bridge. Excellent shot, that one."

Brynjolf rubbed his eyes. "All right, why is it that every time I go anywhere, I hear about how fantastic the Dragonborn is in a fight? This is, this… This is getting out of hand."

"He is living history," Vilkas shrugged. "Like how Martin Septim, or even Ysgramor himself, must have been during their lifetimes. You happen to be acquainted with this one. Now, come with me."

That was enough of an answer, Brynjolf supposed. It was strange, being on speaking terms with someone from legend. He'd have liked to think that once you got to know these people, they'd turn out to be just as human as anyone, but the Dragonborn wasn't as human as anyone. Even in person, he acted less like a regular man, and more like a force of nature.

On the far right hand side of the room, there was a staircase down to a basement level. This came as a shock to Brynjolf. He'd never realized this place actually had a downstairs. But then… Why hadn't he thought of that the moment he entered? The Companions _lived_ here. There were no beds or baths in the main hall.

The lower level was made entirely of stone. Stone floor, stone walls, low vaulted stone ceiling. Brynjolf figured it could probably withstand Joorvaskr's wooden portion falling in on itself. There was a long main hallway, with a bunch of little hallways going off it. It felt a bit more like a dungeon than a living space. Besides the beautiful red rugs everywhere, and the chandeliers, and the smell of soap. Someone kept this place absolutely spotless.

Vilkas led him around some corners, past some tables of _more_ delicious food (honestly, how come these people weren't all fat?), eventually to a cozy little corner with two chairs and a tiny table between them. Vilkas invited Brynjolf to sit with him. Seemed confidential enough back here. He set his pack down on the floor.

"Thanks for the privacy, lad," Brynjolf said, before sitting down with a loud sigh of relief. He realized he hadn't really properly sat down all day.

Vilkas narrowed his eyes. "Do you just call everybody lad?"

"Well, the ladies are lass," Brynjolf shrugged.

"Right, then. What can we do for you?"

Brynjolf cleared his throat. "The Dragonborn needs your help. There's some artifact, a magic staff he needs, in his plans to fight the Thalmor. He'd get it himself, but… Well, he can only be in one place at a time, that's why I'm here today and not him."

Vilkas nodded.

"I know," Brynjolf said, "that it's not the usual policy of the Companions, getting involved in the struggles of politics. But you took a stand against the dragons, and… Truth be told, the Thalmor are at least as dangerous. At least the Dragonborn was fated to defeat the dragons."

"I… Understand the dangers of the Thalmor," Vilkas said. "The Companions are already committed to defending Whiterun against them. What's this artifact?"

"It's the Staff of Magnus. I believe that was its name. It has the power to use mages' own magicka against them. It's the perfect answer to an army of wizards."

"And… _Where_ is it?"

Without missing a beat, Brynjolf replied, "Labyrinthian."

Vilkas' eyebrows shot up. "Labyrinthian. You want us to go in there? No one can even open the door!"

Brynjolf reached down into his pack, rifled around a bit, and pulled out a horseshoe-sized open ring of iron. "That's because the door knocker is in my hand."

"The…" Vilkas just gaped for a few seconds. Looked like he knew his history. "The Torc of Labyrinthian? Where did you _get_ that?!"

"That's not important right now. What's important is, we have a way into Labyrinthian, and we need to get there before the Thalmor find the staff and destroy it."

"You realize they'll do that the moment they realize we're after the staff?"

"That's why the Dragonborn tasked me to this mission. Me, a man of the Thieves Guild." Brynjolf grinned conspiratorially. "The Thalmor will be keeping an eye on you. I imagine they have been for a while. Whiterun's got at least one spy working for the elves, you can be sure of that. So… Knowing we're being spied on, the mission to Labyrinthian needs to be an absolute secret."

Vilkas looked skeptical, so he continued. "We'll start another, second mission. One they're meant to find out about. And of course, that one will be secretive too, but not _as_ secretive. They'll stop looking for answers once they have one."

"Is this what it's like for thieves? Layers of schemes all over? Like a basket of onions?"

"More or less, aye."

"Well, I'll tell you something, Brynjolf. Your work and a basket of onions have another thing in common. They both make me cry." Vilkas scowled. He was obviously not crying.

Brynjolf cracked up. Pretty soon, Vilkas was laughing too.

"Oh, that is… Aye, well, let me worry about the scheming bits, all right?" Brynjolf said, once he'd calmed down enough. "I'm not sure what the decoy mission ought to be."

"I am," Vilkas said suddenly. "We'll start putting our efforts into finding the shards of Wuuthrad. Ysgramor's ancient axe. I've heard it to be enchanted to work best against elves. We've actually been trying to do this for a while."

"Which would make sense, why I'm coming to you about it."

"Indeed." There was a moment of silence. Vilkas sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. "Where'd you get those scars? If I may ask, I mean."

"Hm?" Brynjolf rubbed his left cheekbone, just about where the stubble stopped. There were a few short, broad pink scars. They weren't very deep. Hard to see, really. "Oh. Snow bear. It was outside Dawnstar, five years ago or so. My bodyguard put a sword through its neck, but it still got me in the face first."

"Ah." Vilkas nodded politely, then stopped for a few seconds, preparing to say something. Then, "I am the Harbinger of the Companions," he declared, in a bit of an unsteady tone. "I do not give orders, and I cannot tell you what they will all do. But I will support you in this venture, on one condition."

Brynjolf wordlessly waved his hand, palm-upward, towards Vilkas. Come on, say the rest.

"You must accompany me in avenging my predecessor, Kodlak Whitemane. He was killed right here, in Jorrvaskr. His death remains unpaid for."

Brynjolf swallowed. This hadn't been in his plan. Best see where it led. "Who killed him?"

"The Silver Hand," Vilkas growled. "They're no better than bandits. Worse, even, for what they do."

"Those are the… The fellows who go around hunting werewolves? Why would they ki—_oh."_

Vilkas said nothing.

"Who else is?" Brynjolf took a deep breath. This definitely hadn't been in his plan.

"Myself, Farkas, and Aela. Tell no one."

"… Aela?"

"The maiden with the red hair."

"Right. So we just go ahead and… Fight those fellows?"

"And win, I would hope," Vilkas smirked mirthlessly. "Now, before we do any of that… You're from the Thieves Guild. I'm not sure how able you are to hold your own in a fight."

"Well…" Brynjolf wasn't sure what he could even say to that.

"When someone walks into Jorrvaskr, they are declaring that they live, and will die, as a warrior. I don't suppose you knew that."

"No, but I'm hoping I won't die as a warrior fighting the Silver Hands, actually."

"So can you fight?" There. There was the question. Brynjolf should have expected this. He was negotiating with the Companions. Fighting was their meaning in life.

Five minutes later, Brynjolf and Vilkas were standing in front of each other in the open outdoors. The afternoon sun was shining down on them. Everything was obscured by glare. It turned out that there was a little stone courtyard behind Jorrvaskr, between it and the outer wall of Whiterun. Of course, there was a nice, big, covered porch first, with more food laying around on it. Seriously.

Vilkas had a blunt wooden practice sword in one hand, and a shield in the other. Brynjolf had been given the same equipment. This felt so wrong. Why were they outfitting him like a warrior of battle? He wasn't one. All the Companions in the hall had gathered under the porch, and were watching, silently. They were about to watch their advisor fellow be humiliated.

"You ready?" Vilkas asked. They were only ten feet or so apart.

He was still wearing his armor, and Brynjolf was still wearing his regular clothes. This was good. Better yet, the stones of the courtyard were rough-hewn things, worn down by centuries of boots, but still no good to land on, especially with no armor cushioning the fall. If he got knocked down, it'd probably leave a bruise at best.

"As I'll ever be," Brynjolf answered, with about as much confidence as anyone would expect.

Vilkas advanced steadily on him, sword at the ready. Brynjolf raised the shield strapped to his arm, calculating his move. When Vilkas took a swing at him, he'd deflect it with the edge of his shield, leaving his opponent wide open to be hit. That was the plan, anyway.

When they got within swinging distance, Vilkas took an easy, low cut at him. He blocked it fast enough with his shield, then realized he'd actually forgotten to account for the shield Vilkas wore. His sword smacked against it uselessly, and a moment later, something had cracked him hard in the thigh. Brynjolf cried out and dropped his sword. He fell on his knees, holding the spot as best he could. That had _hurt_.

A few of the people watching from the porch giggled. Brynjolf felt the heat of shame rising to his cheeks. He struggled back to his feet, not wanting to look Vilkas in the eye. It'd been a while since anyone had put him through anything like _this_.

"You all right, Brynjolf?" Vilkas sounded truly concerned, at least. "Don't mind them. Sorry if I got you too hard there. Usually my sparring partners have some kind of armor."

"Aye, well, I don't," Brynjolf snapped. He stopped himself from saying anything more, took a few deep breaths. "Look, I can't fight with a sword and shield. That's not how a thief fights."

Vilkas relaxed from his fighting stance. "How does a thief fight, then?"

Brynjolf answered by unbuckling his shield and setting it back down where he'd picked it up from. Then he silently crossed the courtyard, to where his pack was laying against one of the porch pillars. He fished out a pair of hard black leather gloves, fingerless, with big thick guards for the forearms. Really more like bracers. It took a minute for him to buckle them on. He didn't care that people were watching.

"You about done there?" Vilkas called out.

"Aye, lad," Brynjolf said, walking back out to the courtyard. To protect his elbows a bit in case he fell, he'd left his jacket on, and buckled his gloves on beneath the sleeves. The result was that he looked like any regular Nordic townsperson, but with fingerless black gloves. It felt odd, but kind of fun at the same time.

Brynjolf sank into a sort of boxing stance, hands up on guard. He kept them open, though, no fists. Vilkas started at him again, closed in steadily. Brynjolf watched his sword. It charged up for a sideways swing. He wouldn't let that swing happen. He lunged in, grabbed Vilkas' sword arm at the wrist just as it started to come around. His other hand found a hold on the man's breastplate, which his shoulder slammed into with all his weight.

Vilkas wasn't that heavy-set a man, really, not like his brother. His armor was heavy, _he_ wasn't heavy. And he definitely hadn't expected Brynjolf to just charge straight into him. He started backpedaling, trying to regain his footing, but it was no use. He fell on his armored back, grunting as the impact jolted him. Brynjolf had held onto him the whole time. That sword was still in his hand, though. He started to stand up so he could kick it out.

Before he could, Vilkas lashed out with his armored foot. It swung up behind and actually connected with Brynjolf's back, sent him tipping forwards onto the ground. He managed to make a shoulder roll, sort of, but he still landed flat on his back. One of the stones struck him right beneath the ribcage. He winced. This was how thieves fought, indeed. It wasn't a spar, it was a brawl.

Vilkas' sword was between them on the ground. Brynjolf rolled onto all fours, started to reach out for it, but Vilkas was already sitting up and twisting around. His sword made a backhand swing at Brynjolf's arms, trying to take them out from under him. Brynjolf pushed his hands off the ground, and while the wooden blade passed beneath him, lunged forwards and grabbed that sword arm again.

If Brynjolf were in Vilkas' position, he would have just pried himself off with his free hand. But Vilkas still had a shield strapped on. He couldn't just bludgeon Brynjolf with it, it was a lethal weapon and they were too close together anyway. And he couldn't really use his hand for anything else. So instead, Vilkas headbutted him right in the ear, hard enough to make him forget which way was up. He let go and fell back onto all fours, eyes squeezed shut.

When he opened them, Vilkas was coming in from his right-hand side, sword in hand, sinking down onto one knee to finally make a proper strike. Brynjolf brought his left leg up under himself, lifted his right hand, twisted his body and kicked Vilkas in the chin. He was off-balance when he was hit, and his sword went flying. He landed ungracefully on his elbows, groaning. This fight was over.

Brynjolf uncurled his right leg from beneath himself and sat down on the rough stones. That landing on his back had done a number.

"By the Nine Divines!" Farkas called out. "You two were nearly fighting to the death!"

Vilkas just laughed as he got back onto his feet. He held out a hand to help Brynjolf up. Brynjolf took it in his fingerless-gloved grip, smiling up at him. These gloves had helped quite a bit with all those grabs and landings. He didn't know why more people didn't wear them.

"You may be no Companion yourself, no shield-brother of mine," Vilkas said, "but it's my understanding you don't need a shield."

"Are we all right, then?" Brynjolf stood at ease. He got the feeling this was going to be one of those solemn, honorable Nord moments.

The Harbinger turned to his Companions, all assembled and at attention. "The fight you saw may not have looked honorable. But this man, a member of the Thieves Guild, no warrior in our sense, faced me with not just skill, but valiance. Bravery. The heart which any Companion carries inside them. Let us give a warm welcome to the esteemed guest of Jorrvaskr, the ally of the Dragonborn and of all Skyrim: Brynjolf!"


	16. J'zargo 3

Loredas, 4:11 PM, 27th of Evening Star, 4E 201

Sinderion's Field Laboratory

J'zargo's former peers and teachers had been working 'upstairs' for over a week, but he found he did not care to go see them. This came as a surprise. But when he thought about it, it did make sense. What were they going to do for him? Teach him more? They were busy working for the Dragonborn, and so was he.

While business was conducted in Alftand above, the Khajiit had spent most of his time in the field laboratory of Blackreach, in secrecy and solitude, experimenting with the ingredients the Dragonborn brought in. For many hours, they were the only two down here. J'zargo learned many things. Many, many things indeed.

The first, most vital lesson explained why there were no instructors of alchemy in the College of Winterhold. Potions did indeed have magical effects, often mimicking spells, but they required no magical prowess to create. The high elves had no natural talent for them. In fact, mages in general had no skill for alchemy. But J'zargo did. He was a charming, clever student. He would learn whatever it took to become great, magic or no.

Alchemy was about technique. Every ingredient had its own ways to be treated, but over time, J'zargo began to notice patterns. Any given ingredient would typically have several potential effects. To create a potion which would grant one of these effects, the ingredient would need to be combined with another, different one, one which shared the desired effect. And if the two ingredients shared multiple effects? Well, then the results could be awfully confusing. J'zargo did not worry about this. He had much to learn, but he was learning fast.

Today, the Dragonborn and he were working side by side, as they often did, creating a very strange potion indeed. Technically, it was to be used as a poison. It turned out that the fungal pods of Hjaalmarch shared two effects with the imp stool mushroom: healing, and paralysis. A poison of this composition would seal the wound it was delivered through, and drop the victim to the ground in seconds. The Dragonborn wished for the guards in Alftand to use it, so it was an opportunity for J'zargo to practice producing potions in bulk. The Dragonborn's gardening and harvesting projects outside would require much of this later.

At the moment, they were sitting at the end counter, grinding the fungi together in stone mortars and pestles. J'zargo carefully mimicked the Dragonborn's movement. "I have been thinking," he suddenly said.

"Hm?" The Dragonborn, Iseus, answered absentmindedly. He was focused on his potion. In the interest of surviving Blackreach's constant humid heat, he had ceased to wear his armor inside the lab, instead wearing cotton slacks and a short-sleeved shirt. Very light clothing. J'zargo had obtained a set for himself, as well. Without his armor, Iseus looked like any other man. Not quite a Nordic warrior, his skin was too dark, but he was muscular in build, clean-shaven, and he even had the Nord center part to his hair. For the first couple of days, J'zargo could not stop looking at him.

"Even without your voice powers, you are better than everyone in the College of Winterhold," J'zargo said. "Not just Khajiit. Everyone. Even the Arch-Mage. How can they do anything to you, if you can simply drink a potion to resist the effects of their magic?"

Iseus frowned, but did not answer until he was ready to start heating his mixture. This meant the apprentice was to do the same. Once they did, there would be a time to wait, and talk. "That's not right, J'zargo. I don't want to fight any of them."

The unsightly fungal mix was too thick to entirely pour, so J'zargo scraped it into the calcinator. These alchemy labs could produce enough fluid for perhaps five potions at a time. No one built larger labs than this, for it became too difficult to manage the ingredients. "But do you not think it fascinating how you have outpaced them?"

"Not everything is a competition, you know."

This gave J'zargo pause. Normally, when anyone told him this, his impression was that they were in denial, that they were losing the competition so badly that they refused to see it. This was impossible in the case of the Dragonborn. J'zargo was fairly sure the Dragonborn was beyond the skill and power of any other mortal in Tamriel. "… Why not? J'zargo does not understand your reasoning."

Iseus turned his wooden chair around to face J'zargo. "How would we get by if all of us were competing?"

He did the same turn with his own chair. That was so easy to answer. It was not even a question. "Competing is what brings out the best in everyone," he said.

"And the worst, in many cases."

Hm.

Iseus continued. "There is a group in Tamriel where that doctrine is actually standard practice. Do you know who does it?"

"Well, no." J'zargo raised his feline eyebrows.

"Dragons," he said. "The only thing they respect is power greater than themselves. Without the threat of punishment, they'll do whatever they feel like. They _universally_ distrust each other. The only reason they listen to me is because I could kill them all if I wanted. They have no empathy. They have no compassion. And as a result, they have no community. No one teaches anyone, no one helps anyone. If we lived the way they did, we'd have no civilization at all. We'd live alone. If everything's a competition, we're all done for."

J'zargo's mouth had gone dry. He swallowed and cleared his throat, but said nothing. Couldn't he have empathy and compassion? He had thought the Dragonborn was simply the most powerful mortal around. Now he was the most persuasive too? Was there anything he did _not_ have some unstoppable argument for? He had just walked in and casually destroyed J'zargo's entire worldview.

Perhaps the distress showed, for the Dragonborn's expression softened. "Your ambition is very impressive," he said gently. "It's the reason I picked you instead of either of the other two new guys at the College."

J'zargo simply looked at him.

So he went on. "It's not… It's not the duty of powerful people to dominate everyone. It shouldn't even be their chosen goal. There are better things to do with power. You think I don't want you to be great?"

"J'zargo has given up for now on coming to conclusions." He might as well tell the truth, he thought.

"Well, not everything is a competition, but that's just the foundation of trust. I don't think you'd like to be great if you had to worry about your underlings stabbing you in the back."

"Perhaps I would be too strong to let them," J'zargo grinned.

"You know, if you want to see how a person really is, you shouldn't look at how they treat the people above them, or the people at their level. You should look at how they treat the people below them. The ones they could treat badly if they wanted, and get away with it."

J'zargo nodded slowly, but remained silent.

"Are you feeling all right?"

"You should write a letter to the Thalmor general," J'zargo said. "Telling him why he's wrong to fight you. You could probably get him to leave Skyrim alone."

Iseus snorted. "Yeah, that'd be good. I'm sure I could just undo his lifetime of conditioning with some words on parchment."

The alchemical mixtures had begun producing the potions. They already had wide Dwemer dishes at the ready, to collect the paralytic healing fluid.

J'zargo was pondering something. He spoke again after a little while. "How did you manage to assassinate Ulfric Stormcloak? J'zargo is sure you were not the first to try."

"I visited the Palace of the Kings with my greatsword on my back. The guards let me in. Couldn't tell you why."

"Perhaps your armor scared them into submission."

"I _was_ wearing the dwarven metal armor. The sword was made of it, too. I still use that sword against things that aren't automatons, you know."

"So… What, you walked in there and killed him? J'zargo has heard that you challenged him to a duel like with the High King. That was what you told General Tullius in Solitude, yes?"

"Yes. In truth, he actually declined my offer," the Dragonborn said. "Turns out he was kind of a bad sport. He sent his guards at me, and tried to escape the palace."

"Wise choice," J'zargo smirked.

"Not really, I just used a shout to just kinda… Zip out from between the guards, and straight at the throne. My sword hit him right in the throat. I… Still had to kill everyone, of course." Iseus didn't seem too affected by it. "I don't know why they kept attacking me. Revenge, or something? They seemed to like it when that fellow in Solitude opened the gate for him to escape. You know, right after he'd killed the High King."

"How do you do it?" the Khajiit asked. "You talk about doing the right thing, and respect, and trust, and empathy, but then you end the lives of countless men without thinking anything of it."

The Dragonborn began to speak, then hesitated. Something was going on inside him. "I don't like it," he said. "What I have to do. It's… I've just learned over the years, how to fight, how to do things like potions, and it turns out I'm really, really good at it. And… You know, someone has to do the things I do. Skyrim wouldn't exist anymore, if no one stepped up to save it."

"You are like one of those Nordic heroes of legend," J'zargo murmured. "Although you are not a Nord. What _are_ you, anyway?"

"Oh, uh… Half Imperial, half Redguard," he said. "My mother was a Redguard. My… Father met her in Hammerfell while he was serving in the Legion, brought her back to the Imperial City."

"Hmm." J'zargo sat back and scratched his head. "Your hair is quite straight for a Redguard."

"I know, right?" Iseus smiled and flicked his bangs. The Nordic center part was usually shoulder-length. His hair was about half as long. His twin locks of hair in front ended just below his cheekbones. "I got this from my papa. All the ladies went for him, back in his time, I'm pretty sure."

It had never occurred to J'zargo that the Dragonborn would even have someone to call papa. He stared at the Imperial-Redguard man blankly. "Your mother must have been exceptional, for him to choose her."

"The only woman he'd ever met who could keep up with a legionnaire's life, he used to say," Iseus chuckled. "Yep. He taught me how to fight. All sorts of weapons. My mama was actually a better shot with a bow, though."

"I'm starting to understand where you get it from."

"I don't suppose your parents were big on magic," Iseus said.

"The mysteries of the arcane always fascinated J'zargo, since he was a cub. No. Khajiit's family did not share his interest. There are no great mage's academies in Elsweyr. J'zargo left as soon as he could." He bit his lip and squinted oddly. So many memories. When he was a cub… When magic had just been some little curiosity for his mother and father to chide him over…

_Remember your place, J'zargo. Your place. Remember your _place,_ J'zargo._

Too much. It was too much. He'd gotten as far away from home as he could. And now he was in a beautiful Dwemer ruin, talking to a living Nord legend, living his life just how he had wanted. And yet… What? And yet what? How had his life managed to bring him _here?_ "J'zargo does not wish to talk about it."

The Dragonborn reached forwards and laid his bare hand on the Khajiit's shoulder. "It's all right. Relax, J'zargo. I have something else for you to focus on anyway."

"The potions?" J'zargo glanced at the alembics. They were dripping away diligently.

"No. I need you to go upstairs and talk to your friends from the College," Iseus said.

J'zargo made a bemused face. "What good will _that_ do?"

"I have a message for you to bring them."

Fifteen minutes later, J'zargo was entering the Alftand cathedral. This was the lowest location that could still be called Alftand, the one that connected to Blackreach. The actual passage was barred behind two successive pairs of doors, both locked. Only authorized personnel—so ones who already knew about Blackreach—were allowed in, or even had copies of the keys. Dwemer keys, essentially metal cylinders with who knew what inside. Impossible to make a wax duplicate of. No one else even knew what was on the other side.

The cathedral was situated in one of those natural caverns. Nothing like the scale of Blackreach, but it was still impressive. From the guarded doors, J'zargo had to descend a staircase to the cavern floor, nodding to the guards as he passed them. He had put his apprentice's robes back on for this venture. Not because he wanted to look more like a mage, but because the uppermost level of Alftand had no closed door between it and the outdoors, and it was _cold_. In many places, there were icicles hanging from the ceiling up there.

Fortunately, J'zargo had no need to pass through the animonculory. There was a lift directly to the upper level, also guarded. There were guards everywhere, he thought. Or perhaps just more at the lower levels. In any case, he entered by himself, and pulled the lever to ascend. There was a hiss of steam, a groan of metal, and he was off.

J'zargo had never actually been to Alftand's upper level. He had gone from the surface straight down to Blackreach, and stayed there. It occurred to him that he had actually not left the giant cavern since his arrival. He exited the laboratory often, exploring the Alftand cluster of buildings, but he had no business up here anymore. Well, mostly.

So the appearance of this place came as a surprise. The lift brought him up to a spacious but dimly lit stone room, decorated here and there with ice and snow, with an open doorway to the rest of the ruins. Two of his former teachers stood, conversing with one another, by the way out. J'zargo approached them.

"J'zargo!" The older of the two saw him first, and he brightened. He looked like a wizard ought to look, J'zargo thought. Minus the silly hat. "It's so good to see you!"

J'zargo walked up to the two of them. Tolfdir, the master of alteration, and his former mentor. And Sergius Turrianus, the master of enchanting, who mostly kept to himself.

Sergius simply nodded politely to him. "J'zargo," he said. Even in this cold, he declined to wear a hood. His strange orange robes sufficed, even with his head shaven. J'zargo did not know how his ears were not frostbitten.

"Khajiit is pleased to see both of you," J'zargo said, without particularly meaning it. "Who else is here?"

It was easily cold enough that he could see the frost of his breath. Somewhere in this frozen segment of ruin, people were working. He could hear voices, and the clatter of hammers on stone, or perhaps metal.

"The Arch-Mage himself has personally overseen some of our operations," Tolfdir said. "But mostly we're just running on hired hands from down below. No need to worry about them leaking our designs—they're not going anywhere."

"It must be strange," J'zargo said. "For someone so focused on safety, to deliberately work on dangerous things."

"Well, let's calm down now, none of the traps are currently armed." Tolfdir raised his hands a bit and inclined his head. A gesture to say, don't worry. "Nor will they be, until we're done here."

"J'zargo supposes he should not ask about the specifics of these traps," J'zargo said, "though he is curious what might bring the College's specialist of enchanting away from his work."

"I suppose there's no harm in letting you know this one," Sergius said, lowering his voice. "You are aware of soul gem traps, correct? Where a soul gem can cast destruction energy at intruders by itself."

Destruction energy meant that it would project a spell of fire, frost or shock. One of the three. "J'zargo understands this concept, though sadly he has never encountered such a thing himself."

"Be glad," Sergius said flatly. It did not deter him, though. "No one normally uses anything beyond common soul gems for this purpose. By going through the animonculory, we have over a dozen grand soul gems, already filled."

"What will you do with them?"

"Fire spells. Enough fire to suck the very air out of the upper level. Anyone on this side of the first set of doors…" The enchanting master grinned menacingly.

"Will be unable to breathe," J'zargo finished the thought. Straightforward idea. "That is impressive. J'zargo hopes it does its job. But J'zargo did not come up here to tour your project. Tolfdir, may Khajiit have a moment in private with you?"

Sergius immediately walked off, leaving Tolfdir standing there by himself. "Oh, of course, J'zargo. What can I do for you?"

J'zargo beckoned for Tolfdir to come away from the doorway, to stand more by the lift. His voice lowered. "The doors on Alftand's lowest level are locked to all but J'zargo and the Dragonborn," he said. "He is working on a project in secret."

Tolfdir said nothing, waiting patiently for him to finish his statement. J'zargo carried on. "The Staff of Magnus," he said in a hushed voice. "Buried deep within the ruin of Labyrinthian. He is preparing to acquire it. But the forces between it and the surface are… Too great to describe. He is building a sort of automaton of his own, you could say. We have held onto the automaton energy dynamos to this end."

"How fascinating! The Dragonborn is wise to pursue the Staff of Magnus," Tolfdir said, doing his best to contain his excitement and keep his voice down. He needed to get out more often, J'zargo thought. "Against an army of wizards? It would change the tide of any battle. But I'm not sure how I can help."

"He would like to request some scrolls of your making. The best mage armor you can design. Perhaps ten or so scrolls will do. He feels his own armor will not be enough against what lies inside, and… Well, none of us have the power that you have."

"Oh, of course, I can do that. Of course." Tolfdir nodded, a very serious look on his face. He was so focused when he had a way to help. "You can expect them delivered within a few days."

"Excellent," J'zargo smiled slightly. "J'zargo must return to his work now. The Dragonborn has had much use for him. You would be proud, if J'zargo were allowed to talk about it."

"I'll take your word for it, one mage to another," Tolfdir said conspiratorially.

"Until next time." With that, J'zargo was back to the lift, and Tolfdir was back to… Whatever he did around here. Telling people to exercise safety and be more careful, probably.

As he pulled the lever to return to the cathedral, J'zargo chuckled. By the time the upper level had disappeared from view, he was shaking with mirth. He had just had his first taste of true subterfuge. The Dragonborn's armor protected him perfectly well. He had no use for mage armor.

But he had known, without knowing how, that the Thalmor would be keeping an eye on their work in Alftand. Even up near the entrance with the mages. J'zargo knew perfectly well that his little 'secret' conversation with Toldfir had been eavesdropped on. He might as well have just been whispering into the Thalmor general's pointed ear.

**I'd like to thank you all for the reviews! They really keep me going. I hope the story has lived up to your expectations.**


	17. Thorald 3

Loredas, 8:49 PM, 3rd of Morning Star, 4E 202

Castle Dour

The day of the new year came and went. Thorald was not involved in the New Life Festival. He had spent this last month in Castle Dour, and he was in no mood for ale, even if it was free.

Every day, he went down to the war room, and looked at the day's plans. That woman in the plate armor, turned out she was a Legate Rikke, had disappeared after a week or so. Tullius was still in Castle Dour, though, and he didn't seem to mind Thorald around, so he stayed.

The Thalmor host was estimated to number around 15,000 total. Unimpressive, by the standards of most armies. Thorald had heard that there were over 40,000 active legionnaires in Skyrim. But many of these elves were elite mages. Any one of them could take on an Imperial century singlehandedly. Really, it was the Legion that was outnumbered.

The real blessing had been the Forsworn. No one had a solid idea on how many of them there were. They were just… _Everywhere_, in the Reach. They had bought the Empire precious weeks to regroup. Tullius had been hard at work organizing the Legion, especially bringing the absorbed Stormcloaks in. Thorald suspected that was one of the reasons he'd been kept around.

The evening of Sundas, the third day of the year, Tullius and Thorald were standing over the map of Skyrim. They weren't even using it for anything. It was just a convenient object to talk while standing over.

"It's true that the Rorikstead staging area is almost ready for the counteroffensive," Tullius was saying, "but I'm not going to launch an attack on Markarth without cutting off the pass to High Rock first."

"High Rock? What's even _back_ there?" Since his arrival in Castle Dour, Tullius had commissioned, out of his own pocket, a fitted suit of armor for Thorald to wear. He was no legionnaire, and so he didn't get their standard issue gear. But the steel plate he wore now felt even better.

"The Thalmor landing camp, no doubt. The ones who landed in Cyrodiil are fighting in Cyrodiil, and starting in Hammerfell would be suicide. No, they sent their ships around to High Rock's northern coast."

"Makes me wonder," Thorald said. "Why didn't they just land right here? In Haafingar?"

"Also suicide. They'd never get a solid beachhead," Tullius answered flatly. No room for questioning. "They already evacuated their embassy, and that's on Solitude's doorstep."

"So… Markarth. You think they have reinforcements on the other side of the mountains?"

"Or they'll flee over the mountains the way they came, and retake the city the minute we relax. The safe passages across aren't terribly many. We can send some men to block them."

"No. No way. You really don't have the time to sneak all around the city, do you? We've been here for a month. The Nine Divines must've all pitched in to keep our luck so strong. We need to _attack_."

"Careful, now," Tullius said, narrowing his eyes. There was no crime in acknowledging Talos as one of the Divines anymore, not with the White-Gold Concordat done away with. But even Imperial advisors probably didn't just say 'no way' to their commanders.

Thorald started to say something, then stopped, and sighed. "I'm sorry I'm not Legate Rikke," he said. "I'm not an advisor of the Legion."

Tullius stopped and thought as well. "No, it's probably better that you're not."

"Hm?"

"Looking at everything though the lenses of protocol and procedure can leave a man with blind spots. Or a woman, in the case of Legate Rikke. The advice you have dispensed this past month would never have come from the mouth of a legionnaire."

"Too much honor, do you think?"

Tullius exhaled sharply from his nose. That was probably something like a laugh. Maybe. "You think like a Nord. It reminds me why fighting your people has been so hard. You run on honor, and anger, and, and giant steel axes."

"Have you ever visited Jorrvaskr? It's everything everyone thinks about Nords, in one building." Thorald grinned.

"The home of the Companions? I'm afraid not. Nordic-"

A bell began to ring outside. Tullius looked up sharply. Thorald just looked confused.

"The general alarm," Tullius said. "Let's go."

Thorald was already as alert as he'd get. He started towards the doors to the courtyard. "What do you suppose is out there? We-"

The doors burst open before he got there. It was one of Solitude's Nordic guards, not a legionnaire. "Thalmor attack!" he shouted.

"Oh, all right," Thorald said mildly.

Tullius drew his sword and strode straight past Thorald. "Where from?"

"The western road, sir, they'll be here in not half an hour. The alert's been sounded."

"Half an hour!" Tullius exclaimed. "How in Oblivion did they make it past our checkpoints?"

"The scout said it was a group of mages." The guard shrugged. "You'd better get out there, sir." And that was the last they saw of him.

Thorald drew his own weapon and followed Tullius out. It was already dark outside. Men were running every which way, shouting orders, loading siege engines, doing war things. Tullius turned to Thorald and addressed him in a low voice.

"The Thalmor have forced my hand. It's time for you to leave Solitude," he said, "Get to Alftand."

"Alftand? Where the Dragonborn is?" Thorald raised his eyebrows.

"He's up to something. Find out what."

"And then?"

"Use your honorable Nord judgment."

"It's been… A true honor working with you, General." Thorald reached out and shook Tullius' hand. The general swapped his sword to the other hand at the last second for the handshake. Impressive, really. "I'll be off to the gate, then."

"No. They'll have it surrounded. You won't make it half a mile. Head to the Blue Palace."

Solitude, the entire city, rested on a natural rock arch over the Karth River. This arch happened to be absolutely _massive_. On the north side, where the city gates were, the arch merged into the top of a rocky cliff. On the south side, where the Blue Palace was, the arch stopped on top of a titanic column of stone. The space beneath the arch was easily big enough to sail three trader's ships through in a line abreast.

This meant the walls around the Blue Palace were at the edge of a hundred-foot fall. Probably longer than that, really.

Thorald stood on top of this wall, doing his best to not look over the edge. No other guards were around here. They'd all gathered on the other side of the city. He could hear the clamoring all the way from over here. He was alone.

Which was good, because he was taking off his armor. The Nord wore regular clothing beneath, at least, but all the steel plates had to go. He tossed them right over the edge of the wall, onto the riverbank below. The only steel to stay on him was the armored gauntlets, and his sword, of course.

As soon as that was finished, Thorald started tying the firmest knot he could manage. The mortared stone merlon he tied it around was wider than the trunk of his body. He was fairly certain it would get the job done.

He'd grabbed the longest rope he could find. It was a rough, hemp cord, a bit thicker than his thumb. Once one end was secure, he tossed the rest of the coil over the edge in both arms. It unfurled in whirling loops as it went down, and… Stopped well before the ground. Close enough for a Nord.

Thorald had neglected to hold onto any of the rope. He had to reach all the way around the merlon to pick it up in his hands. And he just happened to make the mistake of looking over the edge. His stomach lurched.

He was looking down a jagged face of rock. It extended so, so dizzyingly far. He could hardly see the ground in this moonlight, but he could sure see the glistening black of the river. That was where he had to get down to.

Putting his foot up on the wall wasn't so bad. Bringing the other leg up… Ehh… It was so windy up here. His hands gripped the rope so hard he thought he might crush it somehow. He was starting to feel light-headed.

He closed his eyes, swallowed. He could do this. All he had to do was just slide off the wall, let the weight go to the wall… _Oh Divines please Talos do not let me fall, let my grip stay strong…_ Maybe that didn't help. He realized that how tight he held on was all that stood between him and a terrible end.

When Thorald shifted his weight all the way onto the rope, he instantly started sliding down. He cursed and scrabbled with his feet for a hold on the wall. The truth was that he had no experience with abseiling. At all. The rope between him and the merlon was taut and quivering. He tried not to look at it either.

The one thing in his favor was his gauntlets. Steel plates riveted onto leather gloves. He could just barely feel the rope's surface passing through his hands. If he were bare-handed, this probably would have taken the skin off his palms.

Above him, in the city, the clamoring suddenly grew a lot louder. He had no idea why.

Once he'd settled into a sort of pattern, Thorald began descending quickly. He'd made it past the actual wall fast enough. Now he was just finding what footholds he could in the crags of the rock column.

This surface seemed to be constantly slippery. No one ever climbed _up_ it. But he was making his way down, sure enough. He was tempted to look over his arm, see how close he was to the ground. He decided against it.

Then the rope ran out. His lower hand bumped into the knot that someone had tied to keep it from fraying. Instantly, he scraped around until he'd found a place to rest, sort of. _Then_ he looked down.

He guessed he was thirty or forty feet above the ground. It was hard to tell. He could see his pieces of armor. If he let go at this height, he'd probably break something. Then he'd be dead meat. He wished he had a horse or something to cushion the fall. Well, that wasn't right. So... He was still stuck.

"Hey!" A voice shouted someplace below him. He struggled to see who it was. "Someone's climbing down!"

Thorald realized the person had an Aldmeri accent. Not unlike his interrogator in Northwatch. The one who had tortured him. Day, after day, after cursed day. Who had tried to break him. And who had failed.

If he stayed here, they'd start launching spells at him. He knew what to do. Nothing would stop him now. He kicked off the rock face at an odd angle, let go of the rope… Brought his hands together above his head, closed his eyes, held his breath…

The river water smashed into his body like a giant hammer of ice. He righted himself underwater, fighting the urge to come right back up, fighting the cold. It was so, so cold. He already couldn't feel his fingers or toes. His gray hair swirled around in front of his face beneath the water.

He couldn't really see or hear anyone above the water. He just swam for the riverbank, and when he was near enough, drew his sword.

There were only two elves. Strange. Usually, the Justiciars worked in teams of four. Didn't matter. Thorald came charging out of the muddy water, not bothering to even shake the water out of his eyes. His sword passed straight through the first elf's armored belly, out his back. There was his element of surprise done with.

Neither of these elves were wizards. For that, Thorald was lucky. If they were, he would've been long dead. Both of them had fancy elven-glass-plated armor. The second elf actually had a glass sword. The whole blade was see-through green. That stuff was harder than steel. This would be fun.

The second elf shouted and charged the Nord before he could even pull the sword back out. He gave up and pushed the first elf's body into the second. It staggered him long enough for Thorald to grab the elf's wrists.

They were locked together in a fight to control the same weapon. The cold was biting into Thorald's body from head to toe. He didn't care. They waved the sword around between them for a few seconds, before the elf elbowed him _hard_ in the ribs.

Thorald sprawled in the freezing mud on his elbows and knees. He wiped his eyes on his forearm, took a look around, reached for the first elf's sword. It was closer than his own.

On a hunch, he rolled to the side as he grabbed it. The second elf's sword plunged into the ground where he'd just been, sure enough. He was right there, crouched over his weapon, and for a split second, they just looked at each other.

There was no time to think. Thorald reached out with his muddy hand and grabbed the elf's neck. The elf dropped his knee on top of the flat of Thorald's new sword, before he could even take it off the ground. Thorald let go of the hilt and put that hand around the elf's neck too.

Finally, he started trying to get out of the strangle hold the Nord had him in. He had to let go a couple times with one hand. They lurched and tumbled over the soft earth. That beautiful glass armor started looking dirty fast.

The elf's armored hands were scraping over his front, over his face. Trying to get his eyes. He shut them. When they got too close to his mouth, Thorald bit down, as hard as his jaws would let him, on the elf's grubby spindly elf-fingers. The elf shrieked and pulled his hands away. He didn't try that again.

Instead, he just punched Thorald in the face. He saw the fist coming in, tried to dodge it… Those glass gauntlets were deadly. The first hit pushed his head hard back into the ground. The second left a gash in his cheek. He couldn't think straight. He blocked the third with his forearm, and _that_ got scraped instead. The fourth got him right above the eye. Moisture started pooling up on his eyelid, he had to blink it away.

To make him stop, Thorald grabbed the elf in a bear hug and started rolling. He ended on top, pulled the elf's helmet off. He was a young-looking Altmer fellow. A vile little elf fellow. His teeth were bared. Thorald grabbed the nearest rock, raised it above his head.

The elf saw the swing coming. He blocked it with his arm, swatted the rock away, kneed Thorald in the belly. The Nord rolled off him awkwardly. Not because the knee strike hurt, and it hurt like crazy. Because the elf was levering him off with his knee, putting him on his back, getting on top of him while he coughed and gagged.

Gravity had taken them towards the water. It was actually lapping at Thorald's back. The elf was about to do something, so he cut him off. Brought his knees up to his chest, planted his feet against the elf, and _pushed_. It wasn't exactly a kick, but the elf flew off him and landed in the river somewhere.

Thorald was right after him. He waded into the water, blinking the fluid out of his eye, following the shiny gold-green patterns beneath the surface. They were going for the riverbank, towards him.

When they got within arm's reach, the elf surfaced. He started to take a breath of air, but Thorald grabbed his head with both his armored hands, and pushed him right back down under. He probably got a lungful of water.

Honestly, Thorald couldn't really tell what he was doing. The elf was thrashing and flailing everywhere. Bubbles were coming up to the surface. He tried to get behind the elf, where those glass gauntlets wouldn't get him. An elbow still hit him in the belly. He didn't care. He held the elf down beneath the water. His heart was pounding.

And he held the elf down there, and held him. The elf was still struggling. He held him.

And held him, until the elf wasn't fighting back anymore.

After a few seconds, Thorald let go and staggered to the edge of the water. He wiped his eye dry with his hand. It came off covered in blood.

He sat down by the first elf's body. Started going through the vials on his belt. It was hard to handle them. His hands were shaking. These vials were marked with things he didn't understand, but none of them looked like poisons, so he just started drinking them until he drank the healing potion.

His body ached in a hundred places, but he wasn't bleeding, at least. For the moment, Thorald wasn't in mortal danger. He just sat for a minute, then decided to go find his armor.

But before he could get up, there was a shrieking roar of flame from someplace above. The river lit up with orange light. Thorald looked up. Somewhere around the city gates, there was a storm of fire, raging so hot and bright that he could see it all the way down here.

That was it, then. Solitude was lost. Tullius was lost. It was over. Thorald had to get out of here. There was a dwarven ruin to go hide in.


	18. Brynjolf 4

Fredas, 2:12 AM, 2nd of Morning Star, 4E 202

Driftshade Refuge

Brynjolf had never really liked traveling. There weren't many riches to be found on Skyrim's roads, unless one was a bandit, which he wasn't. And he was sharing this journey with some of the most honor-obsessed Nords he'd ever met. _And_, instead of spending yesterday enjoying the New Life Festival, having some ale with his friends, singing whatever songs were in style these days, maybe finding a nice wench to top it off, he was out _here_. In the Pale.

He'd always sort of taken it for granted that water wouldn't freeze for that long. Riften, where the Thieves Guild was based, sat right on the bank of Lake Honrich, and every winter, there'd be maybe a little film of ice on the water, and that was it. Riften was as far south as Skyrim got, its winters were mild.

Not so, here. This was the Pale. The capital city, Dawnstar, was on Skyrim's gods-forsaken north coast! They were only a couple days' travel southeast of there, in fact. They'd had to circle around the Pale's mountain ranges to reach the target. Up here, everything was snowy and windy and the cold bit through his cloak and gloves and boots.

Brynjolf wondered if they might've shaved off a few days of travel by going through that huge cavern the Dragonborn had showed him. Blackreach. Not that anyone could know that that place existed, of course.

The truth was, he didn't know the first thing about the Dragonborn's actual plans. He didn't know why Blackreach was so important. So why was he allowed to know it existed? The Dragonborn worked a lot like a thief, this way. He only told people the minimum they needed to know. After all, if Brynjolf were caught by the Thalmor now, the Dragonborn could kiss his secret cavern goodbye.

Speaking of which, Brynjolf was kind of worried about the whole Thalmor thing, still. At least he was in such caring company.

Only a few others had come along for the ride. There was Vilkas, of course, and his brother Farkas, and that girl Aela (who was hopelessly unavailable, Brynjolf had realized that before they even left Jorrvaskr), and no one else. Apparently, this was enough people to attack a fortress.

They'd actually left Jorrvaskr the same day that Brynjolf arrived. Not even an hour later. Vilkas arranged for a few horses to be loaded up with some of that endless stockpile of amazing food, and the other Companions packed up their things. Brynjolf spent that time sitting there, nursing his bruises (asking for a bit of healing magic would've completely ruined the respect he'd just earned), and regretting that he hadn't given himself a day to rest before showing up at the Companions' doorstep.

On the way out, through the Wind District, a Redguard man with close-cut hair and nobleman's robes started walking alongside Brynjolf. "Do you get to the Cloud District very often?" he said, without being prompted. "Oh, what am I saying, of course you don't."

Brynjolf turned and slugged the Redguard in the jaw, right in front of everyone. He dropped like a sack of flour. A few of the guards clapped.

And that was pretty much the best part of his trip. From that point forward, it was just riding, and riding, and riding. On the way across Whiterun Hold's open plains, they'd had one especially enlightening conversation.

"I don't get it," Aela suddenly said, after some ten minutes of silent riding abreast.

"Hm?" Vilkas glanced to her.

"Brynjolf," she said. "Why are you doing any of this? At all? You're not a warrior. You're a thief."

"Aye," Brynjolf nodded.

"So what's in this for you? You're going off risking your life for… What? I don't like it."

"Well, it's not for profit, lass," the thief said. "The Dragonborn isn't even paying me for my service."

"That's not helping."

"The Thalmor want to destroy Skyrim. I have a shot at helping stop them. It's really not that complicated, lass."

She wouldn't have any of it. "But you're from the Thieves Guild! You work for yourself, that's how thieves are."

"Aela! Be courteous," Vilkas said, sharply.

"And you don't?" Brynjolf ignored him for the moment. "You can't tell me you don't enjoy your line of work. Would you rather do anything else?"

"Of _course_ not," she said.

"Anyway, this is a fight for all our survival," Brynjolf continued. "I'll do whatever I need to. Even fighting alongside a band of werewolves."

Farkas started. "What? How do you know about that?!"

"Remind me where we're going, lad?"

"… Oh. Right."

"I'm watching you," Aela growled. That was definitely a growl in there. "You may be a guest of the Companions, and I may be sworn to honor that. But that doesn't mean you've earned my trust."

"You're not supposed to trust me, lass," Brynjolf said.

"Then what _are_ we supposed to do with you?" asked Farkas.

"Well, keeping me alive would be nice, I think."

Aela wouldn't just let it go. "Is that really all you care about? Keeping alive? A true warrior doesn't live in fear of death. Though I suppose it's unfair to expect you to be as strong inside as a warrior."

And so they rode on. And on, and on. And by the end of the day, Dragonsreach had disappeared from behind them, and they'd entered the Pale.

And now, a week later, they were approaching Driftshade Refuge.

They tethered their horses to some trees a few hundred yards out, approached on foot. Brynjolf left his cloak with the horses. The cold seeped into him instantly, but he'd not want it weighing him down later. There were plenty of trees. Big, tall evergreens here and there, covered in snow, of course. And snowberries. They seemed to be able to sprout, grow and bear fruit all below freezing temperatures. Strange little plants.

Driftshade Refuge was just up ahead. Honestly, going by how his traveling partners had been going on about it, Brynjolf had expected a great big castle, or something. But it turned out that the refuge was basically a pile of rocks, sort of shaped like a building. It was only one story high, the roof was covered with snow, it was no bigger than a regular house.

"Are you serious," Brynjolf said.

Vilkas gave the thief an exasperated look, hunkered down behind a tree trunk, and held his hand up in a 'wait' gesture. Everyone dropped into the shadows. Brynjolf followed their lead.

It was a snowy, blustery night, and it was almost impossible to see anything, especially since there was a mountain range directly behind the fort. But Brynjolf was pretty sure there were a couple sentries standing up there on the roof. Must've been half-frozen to death up there.

"Aela," Vilkas whispered.

Brynjolf turned to see her nocking an arrow to a recurve bow. He turned back to the refuge just as he heard the _twang _of the bowstring. One of the sentry-silhouettes fell off the roof. The other started to draw a weapon. _Twang_. Done and dealt with.

The front door (it was a door, not a gate) was a simple, wooden thing. Vilkas was able to just push it open. Wasn't even locked.

The first room was tiny, of course. No surprise. It was lit by a single stone brazier, and filled with all kind of debris. Stone, dirt, straw. Smelled so stale it was almost nauseating. And the far wall opened to a staircase downward. The entire refuge was underground. Explained the pathetically small building, at least.

Vilkas took the lead. His brother followed, then Brynjolf, then Aela. Brynjolf got the feeling that Aela just didn't want him behind her. No one said a word, but Brynjolf could feel the tension. His body was starting to notice just what he was doing. He breathed slowly, deliberately, trying to keep his heart from beating so fast. They were going to kill everyone in this place, or die trying. That was the reality of this situation.

The staircase went down, and down, and down. There were torches here and there, but the stones were dank and mossy and kind of falling apart. It was cold down here, almost as cold as outside. It looked more like a ruin than a fort.

There was another door at the bottom. Vilkas slowly drew his sword. Farkas did the same, and Brynjolf pulled that dagger of his out. He knew how to fight with it, at least.

When Vilkas swung the door open, Brynjolf expected an arrow to come through and skewer his skull. But they still had the element of surprise. The room was a big, open sort of atrium, lit by candles all over the place, with a staircase going down from the door to the atrium floor.

"Hey, you!" someone shouted from below.

Two men in ragged fur armor were walking towards them, up the stairs. They were only starting to draw their swords when they were met.

Vilkas and Farkas split and did a neat sort of matching maneuver. They both strode forward and thrust their big two-handed swords right into the men's bellies, before they even had a chance to properly react. The bodies fell and rolled limply back down the staircase. Excellent economy of movement. So much for the element of surprise, though, everyone would've heard them.

"Is it all going to be that easy?" Brynjolf followed down and examined the bodies. They were hardly dressed for combat, though their swords were made of an odd, dull, almost bluish metal. Silver, he guessed. One had a woodcutter's axe on him. They each carried a single vial of some kind of potion.

"Hardly," Vilkas said, unsmiling.

Brynjolf peered around the room. There was a sort of side door to the left, but the main route was obviously straight ahead. There was a nice wide corridor leading right to a nice big door, not unlike the one they'd just gone through.

Behind him, Aela came up and stood vigilantly. She'd swapped her bow for some kind of sword. "Not getting cold feet, are you?"

"C'mon," Brynjolf muttered.

Vilkas strode ahead, past a couple werewolf heads on spikes, and pushed on the next door. "Damn. It's barred. We'll have to go around."

Brynjolf just looked at him. "Are you joking?"

Vilkas blankly stared back.

Brynjolf grabbed the woodcutter's axe off that one corpse, walked up by Vilkas, and started chopping into the door.

The wood made a sickly _whudd _sound every time he hit it. But it only took him a dozen strokes or so to make a hole big enough to put his arm through. He didn't want to actually use his arm, because there was _definitely_ someone waiting with a bow this time. Instead, he reached through the hole with the handle of the axe, and levered the door bar out of the way like that.

"Fixed," he said.

Vilkas silently went past him and started to pull the door open.

The moment he did, two arrows came his way. He ducked back behind the door and let them hit the wall. No sooner had they hit than Farkas charged through, sword high, roaring at the top of his lungs. Aela followed him in, and then Vilkas. Brynjolf came in after them all. These fellows weren't so big on the whole tactics thing, looked like. He was still just trying to keep his breathing in control.

There was another stretch of hallway on the other side of the door. At the end of it, the Silver Hands had made a sort of barricade out of a wooden dining table, trying to aim their bows over it. Farkas smashed into it, tipped it over, right on the couple men using it. Brynjolf couldn't tell whether he was hearing splintering of wood or bone.

This room looked like some kind of living space. Another big, open room, with stairs on the left and right up to raised areas. Might've been an impressive bit of Nord architectural history, if it weren't full of bloodthirsty werewolf-hating butchers. There were six of them, coming down the stairs on both sides. This was going to be exciting.

The Companions met the Silver Hands right at the base of the stairs. There was a din of metal clashing and people shouting and Brynjolf had no clue what was going on. An elf with spiky hair and a sword-and-shield deal spotted him and charged past everyone, straight at him. Exciting indeed.

Brynjolf sidestepped slowly to the left, to get away from the doorway. He twirled his dagger into a reverse grip.

When the elf got close enough to take a swing at him, he lunged in, just like he had with Vilkas, but this time he ducked under the attacker's arm entirely. His left foot actually landed _behind_ the elf – and his right knee hit him someplace very sensitive. His dagger plunged into the elf's back at the same time.

The elf slumped on his front, falling free of the dagger, and dropping his sword and shield. It'd been a long while since Brynjolf had had to kill anyone. He didn't like how familiar it felt.

An arrow whizzed past Brynjolf from behind, just beneath his arm. It hit Farkas right in the side, punched through his plate armor. Farkas fell on one knee, but kept his sword up.

There were three more of them, all with bows, advancing up the corridor. Brynjolf shoulder-rolled across the corridor, evading another arrow, and picking up that poor elf's shield. It was one of those kinds with a center grip. No straps.

He brought his brand-new cruddy shield up in time for another two arrows to thud into it. They actually pierced through all the way, the arrowhead points were sticking out the back. The fight was going on behind him still, but he couldn't afford to look. Those three in the corridor were coming in fast, drawing weapons. Brynjolf would've given anything for a nice big suit of armor right then.

Instead, he dropped the shield and ran for the wall. There were stairs to the raised-platform-things towards the center of the room, but this part was just a vertical drop. Brynjolf threw his dagger up onto the platform, and started scrabbling his way up. On the platform, there was actually a stone brick fireplace going in the corner, and another one of those dining tables.

These stones were cold and slippery, but rough-cut. Normally, easy to climb. But he could not control his body. His heart was hammering, his mind was fogged, nothing worked. It felt like trying to climb up the side of an iceberg. He made it just as the three new guys rushed in. They seemed to ignore him.

Farkas had dropped out of the fight. He was off to the side, in the dark, trying to pull that arrow free. Bad idea, unless he had a healing potion. Aela and Vilkas were dueling a single man in full steel plate, armed with a massive golden sword. He was making an impressive account of himself. Every blow the two Companions tried to lay on him, he'd deflect or dodge or somehow just not get hurt by.

Something up here caught Brynjolf's eye. On the table. A whole mess of metal shards, just sitting there, like coins to be counted. He crept across the platform towards them. They seemed… Important. He could make out bits of Nordic decoration on parts of them.

"HEY!"

Brynjolf froze. One of those three new guys was pointing right at him.

"He's getting the shards!"

First things first. He scooped all the shards off the table with his arm, poured them into one of his outfit's larger pouches. The armored guy with the big gold sword started clambering up the steps. Looked like the Companions were busy with the other three. Brynjolf was alone up here. A bitter taste rose in the back of his throat.

As always, he watched the man's weapon. It was a big, big sword. Glossy golden metal. Elven in make, maybe? Something. Not dwarven. The man brought it around to prepare for a swing, and started at him. He had one shot at dodging that thing. When he got within sword range, at least.

Brynjolf backpedaled towards the wall. It wasn't just to procrastinate. He had to pick his dagger back up.

Down on ground level, Farkas was back in the fight, good as new. But there were a whole lot more Silver Hands down there than Brynjolf remembered. The whole room was loud and bloody and full of steel.

The man didn't really charge, but he started into a quick sort of stride. Brynjolf sank into a low, bent stance, dagger tightly in hand. It'd come any second now. That golden sword charged up for the swing…

Brynjolf leapt right at him, empty hand outstretched. He caught the sword by the pommel. It thudded right in his palm. The man let go with one hand and grabbed Brynjolf's dagger-arm wrist. Stalemate.

They strained against each other, circling slowly. Up close, he could see the man's face through his steel visor. A Nord, a little older, very very hard-looking. He looked ready to kill.

He tried to knee the armored guy in the belly. No luck, too much armor. A steel-clad boot slammed down on his toes. He cried out, but didn't let go. This man was _strong_. Brynjolf prided himself on being a well-built thief, but his opponent was a well-built warrior. Bigger than Farkas. Brynjolf was feeling an eerie chill that he'd never really felt before.

The man was pushing him backwards, towards the wall. Once he was there, he'd be helpless. Pinned like a butterfly in a box. Brynjolf had to act now. He let go of the sword pommel and ducked under the man's left arm. In the process, he broke free from that grip on his wrist, but he dropped his dagger.

What would happen next was this: The man would turn around with both hands back on his sword, and probably take Brynjolf's head clean off his shoulders. There would be no chance to block it, or to dodge it, at this range. Brynjolf didn't let him turn around. The moment he'd passed under the man's arm, he turned and grabbed it at the wrist and shoulder, locking it behind his back. Then Brynjolf kicked him in the back of the knee and shoved him headfirst into the fireplace.

The man sure dropped that sword fast. He let out a piercing shriek that drowned out all the sounds of fighting, started scrambling to get free, trying to push back out with his free hand. His helmeted head was right over the flames. Brynjolf didn't want to look. He searched frantically for something sharp to finish him with. That sword was too far away, his dagger was way too far away… No good.

After a few seconds, he just let go. The man shoved away and pulled his helmet off, clutched at his face. It was smoldering. Letting off smoke through his fingers. It smelled so foul and acrid.

Brynjolf instantly went for that big elven sword, snatched it right up—damn, it was heavy. Elves were supposed to make lightweight things! The thief didn't even bother to prepare a swing. He just lifted it off the ground and brought it point-first into the armored guy's throat.

It was like hitting a practice dummy, the man wasn't even moving, but he still missed at first. The sword's point scraped along the man's breastplate as Brynjolf pushed it forwards, then it got to the top and plunged into his unarmored neck. Blood squirted out around the blade, started dripping down the edge. He let go instantly. Didn't want to look at that man's face, or what was left of it.

When he turned his attention back down to the main floor, there wasn't much to see. Just three Companions standing practically waist-deep in Silver Hand corpses, their blades all bright shiny red. It smelled like blood in here. Looked like they were done, then.

"Brynjolf!" Vilkas called out. "Are you all right?"

"Aye, lad, are you?" Brynjolf nodded and started for the stairs, but he didn't make it one step before falling on all fours and puking his dinner out all down the side of the platform. His body was trembling head to toe. Couldn't stop retching. His temples were throbbing, his eyes were watering, he couldn't even… What was this?

A pair of big, strong hands pulled him up and sat him down. Vilkas was crouching just right of him. Handed him a cloth rag from someplace. He wiped his face off, blinked a bit. Still watery-eyed. Or crying, he might've been doing that.

"You fought bravely," Vilkas said quietly. "Like one of us."

"We usually don't stick people's faces in fires," Aela said from somewhere.

There was a moment of silence. Brynjolf imagined someone was glaring at her.

"They mentioned the shards," said Vilkas.

Brynjolf didn't answer. Wiped his eyes again, wiped his nose, tried to get a handle on himself. His heart wouldn't stop pounding. He hadn't just had a brush with death, he'd had a slow dance and a massage with death. He could've been full of arrows right now, or sliced up like meat for the market, or who knew what, he could've been not feeling his heart beat at all.

Someone sat down on the other side of him. It was Farkas. He didn't say anything, he just put a heavy plated arm around Brynjolf's shoulders, and held onto him silently. An amount of time passed. He wasn't keeping track.

"I found these on the table," Brynjolf said. He reached down to the bigger pouch on the left of his outfit. Farkas let go and edged away so he could open it. He pulled out a single piece of the metal bits.

"The fragments of Wuuthrad," Vilkas breathed. "No wonder that one pointed at you."

"The Silver Hand stole all the pieces we'd collected in Jorrvaskr," Farkas said.

Brynjolf silently put the shard away. "Should I look around, then? See if there's, uh… Anything else to be found here?"

"We've recovered our fragments of Ysgramor's axe, and we've avenged Kodlak Whitemane's death," Vilkas said. "I have no taste for plunder. Let us leave this place, the sooner the better."

With that, the four of them went down the stairs (Brynjolf was able to walk again, at least), waded through the sea of corpses on the floor, and got back out into that first room. This was the one with the two men with fur armor and stab wounds in their stomachs.

"Reminds me," Brynjolf said. His voice felt sort of removed. Like someone else was talking. "Those men have some kind of potions on them. One a piece, identical vials. I've got no idea what that's for."

"Disease cure potions, most likely," replied Aela. "They're so afraid of lycanthropy that they keep those on them all the time. In case they're bitten by a werewolf in beast form, I presume."

"Do they work on things besides lycanthropy?"

"I suppose so," she shrugged.

Brynjolf bent down and relieved the two bodies of their potions. They wouldn't be needing them, he figured. That was the only thing he took from this place. Now it was time to head back up the stairs.

"I think I left my dagger back there," Brynjolf said suddenly.

"Do you want to go get it?" Farkas asked.

"… No."

They kept walking.

"This was the last known stronghold of the Silver Hand in Skyrim," Vilkas said. "It is my hope that we won't have to worry about them anymore."

"And good riddance to them," said Aela.

Brynjolf didn't pay things much attention after that. He rinsed his mouth out with some cool water (magic waterskin, very handy up north) when they got back to their horses, and… That was that.

The Companions might have found some pleasure in that fight. Brynjolf just felt wrong. He wondered if they would've felt this way if he'd brought them along on a Thieves Guild endeavor, or… Or maybe thieves truly were just made of weaker stuff. Or maybe it didn't matter.


	19. Ancano 4

Tirdas, 10:36 AM, 1st of Morning Star, 4E 202

Rorikstead Staging Area

Finally. _Finally_. Ancano was getting to stroll through some smoking ruins. Today was a very good day indeed.

The Legion's staging area was just outside the actual village of Rorikstead. They vastly outnumbered the village's actual population. There couldn't have been more than one or two hundred people in Rorikstead proper, and the staging area had hosted almost five thousand legionnaires, auxiliaries and the like. There was plenty of open rocky hilly space to camp on. Hundreds and hundreds of tents.

But apparently, even in the Imperial Legion itself, the Empire's decadence knew no bounds. Half the soldiers here had been still drunk from the previous night's festivities, and the other half had been suffering the effects of hangovers. None of them were ready for the 14th Unit.

The first thing Ancano had done was have some of the regulars establish a perimeter around the whole staging area. No gaps. No one would get in or out. Really, it was essentially a ring of soldiers standing on guard. That alone required a thousand or so elves.

Then, once the perimeter was secure, it was Commander Lestra's turn. It wouldn't have been possible without her mages. Even if they'd managed to overrun the staging area, it would have been with massive casualties. But no, her mages effortlessly dispatched the few sentries on watch from a distance, and then… Then they started unleashing destruction magic.

Ancano himself was an accomplished mage, and yet he did not recognize the spells that the 14th Unit was putting to use. All he knew, truly, was that they involved fire. It was a spectacular sight. From all around the edges of this vast staging ground came a flood of flames, like a plate pushed beneath the surface of the water in a basin. Within seconds, those beautiful hundreds of tents were ablaze. Even from his lookout point, Ancano felt the heat. The fires burned, and burned, and engulfed every last structure the Legion had put up. The glare of the blaze was so bright that it left spots in the back of the elf's eyes. There was no time for the legionnaires to react.

The whole attack only took a couple of minutes, and not a single Thalmor casualty. A few men tried to flee, but the perimeter soldiers effortlessly intercepted them. The 14th Unit had even taken the precaution of manipulating the air itself above the site to disperse the smoke.

Now the general finally had his chance to walk into the aftermath of his conquest. There wasn't much to see. Burnt earth, ashes, skeletons here and there, charred pieces of metal, as far as the eye could see. The whole place smelled of wood smoke. And burnt meat, which was somewhat off-putting, but still. The entire Imperial detachment at Rorikstead was _gone_. This mission could not have been much more successful.

Commander Lestra and the Prime Justiciar walked alongside him. Not behind, alongside, all matching step in their black Thalmor robes. He was pleased with them both. And neither of them seemed particularly unhappy with him. That was a rather nice change.

"We shouldn't stay here for long," Lestra said.

"It _is_ a smoking ruin now," answered Elevir.

Lestra flashed him an irritated look, then continued. "We can intercept any Imperial scouts, messengers, whatever they send this way, and Rorikstead itself is under lockdown, of course. But soon enough, the Legion will realize they've lost contact with their staging area, and they'll regroup."

"We're sparing the locals in the village? Why?" Elevir frowned.

"There's no point in killing them. Really, I'd rather they live to tell the tale of what sort of power the Thalmor unleashes on its enemies."

"We should have done this during the First War with the Empire," said Ancano. He was still smiling about getting to walk through a smoking ruin. "I was an officer of the Thalmor back then as well. We all were, I believe. Commander?"

"I was still in Alinor," Lestra said. "Studying magic. The mage units simply weren't ready. Not only had we not trained together—" she paused—"but many of us had yet to train at all. The idea of mage-only forces on this scale is worryingly new."

Elevir said, "At least it's new to the Legion as well. Do they even have a strategy prepared for dealing with Thalmor mage units?"

"I don't know," Ancano shrugged. "Surrender?"

They all laughed at that one.

Lestra looked to her general. "What's our next target, then? Solitude?"

"I've received some worrying reports from my intelligence network," said Elevir. "You can guess whom this is going to be about."

"Thank you for ruining my good mood," Ancano said mildly. His good mood wasn't gone, he merely felt like saying that. "What is it now?"

Elevir started what Ancano was fairly certain was a prepared speech. "For weeks now, I've been searching everywhere I can to answer one question—what is the Dragonborn doing? He has eluded us, consistently, for months. I have almost no information on him. What is his plan? He set up shop in a dwarven ruin in the middle of the Winterhold. That's a terrible place to put a fortress. It's so far out of the way. But he's set up shop there, and he's doing something big.

"There are over four thousand people in Alftand now. Of course, we have a few spies in the mix. It's easy with so many newcomers being settled in. They're filling the entrance to the ruin with magical traps. Not armed, yet, but they are there. One of our spies was helping install them when he overheard a singularly important conversation. The Dragonborn is building a machine. A massive one. And he intends to acquire the Staff of Magnus, in the ruin of Labyrinthian. We remain uncertain whether the machine is to help him acquire it, or to help him use it, or both, but he's already started melting down metal for it. They're calling it the Black Machine, who knows why."

After a little bit of time, Ancano realized that Elevir was finished speaking. This was fascinating food for thought. "Do either of you know what the Staff of Magnus can _do?_"

"All I've found," Elevir said, before Lestra could say anything, "is that it has the potential to absorb massive amounts of magic. Nothing more. He may know more than we do."

Lestra said nothing. Ostensibly, her knowledge did not exceed Elevir's.

"It's a sensible artifact to try to obtain," Ancano said.

Now Lestra spoke. "Any one magical staff can only do so much, but if the Dragonborn were to amplify it using Dwemer technology, there's no telling what sort of power it would have."

Ancano sorted through what he knew. The Dragonborn was the greatest single threat to the Thalmor in Skyrim. Maybe in all Tamriel. The Thalmor's spies had relayed that he intended to acquire the Staff of Magnus, and that he was working in secrecy on a machine related to it. Where was the weak point in this?

Just in the interest of voicing his thoughts, Ancano said, "Are you sure, Elevir, that the word of your spies in Alftand is reliable?"

"Absolutely, yes I am," Elevir said, with no small hint of pride. "The Thalmor have been planting spies in the Imperial Legion for decades. Since well before the Great War. Many of the Stormcloak rebels were former legionnaires, so we ordered our spies to defect whenever their peers did. And now… Now the former Stormcloaks have an open invitation to Alftand."

Ancano's doubts about the validity of Elevir's intelligence did not simply dissipate, but that was convincing enough for him to put it out of his mind for now. Thalmor intelligence was unrivaled in Tamriel. They had spies everywhere. Which brought him right back to his state of doubt.

He must have known. The Dragonborn must have known, about the spies infiltrating Alftand. He opened the doors to anyone who wanted to come in. How in the world could he _not_ expect spies? But Ancano kept this concern to himself. His trust in his subordinates was zero. The Dragonborn's forces might have been infiltrated by the Thalmor, but Ancano's forces _were_ the Thalmor.

The three of them had reached the far end of the encampment by now. The burnt wreckage gave way to bare rock for a few paces before the grass started. Ancano stopped on this bare stretch and turned around to survey the ruin. Elevir and Lestra carried on half a pace, before noticing and following suit.

"How large a fraction of the Imperial Legion in Skyrim would you say we just wiped out?" Ancano asked no one in particular.

"A tenth? Maybe?" Lestra half-said, half-asked. "The numbers are hard to gauge, with the Stormcloaks being reintegrated. Certainly no less than a fifteenth."

"I don't suppose they'll give us the chance to let us do this fourteen more times," said Elevir.

Lestra snorted.

"The 14th Unit is proving most impressive," Elevir offered. It sounded like a half-question the same way Lestra's fraction remark had.

"Wait a moment," Ancano said. "Where _is _the 14th Unit right now? I haven't seen a single mage since I left the lookout point."

"Just northeast of here, waiting orders, ready to move," answered Lestra.

"Come again, commander?"

"We don't exactly need to stop for anything. There's no battle to recover from."

Ancano smirked. "Very well. To Solitude."

"General?" That was Elevir.

"There's no point in dwelling here, the Legion will notice us soon enough. We march to Solitude. Lestra, I want your mages to clear the path for the regulars, but do _not _let them on the front lines once we reach the city. Whatever Tullius has cooked up had better be spent on less valuable elves."

"Yes sir," Lestra said, then quickly departed.

That left Elevir standing by him. "Are you sure about this, sir?"

"We have no reason not to proceed, Elevir. Don't worry, we will deal with the Dragonborn when the time comes."

Ancano had once heard that Ulfric Stormcloak had murdered the High King partly to make a statement to the other Jarls, and partly because he could. Now, the time had come to march on Skyrim's capital, to the very palace in which the High King had resided. He wondered if people would, one day, think that he had captured Solitude just because he could.

But if they were measuring simply what Ancano _could_ do, surely capturing a city was too little.

**Updates are on their way. There's no need to worry about that. I appreciate your feedback!**


	20. Paarthurnax 3

Fredas, 12:32 PM, 2nd of Morning Star, 4E 202

The Throat of the World

The rules of Paarthurnax's existence, once set as clearly as the line of the horizon, had turned to shades of gray.

Not since his years serving Alduin had the dovah truly played a part in any war. During that time, matters still had worked with order. He was an immortal being, a child of Akatosh, and brother to the world's rightful ruler. It had been his due place to keep the mortal races of man and mer in _their_ due place. The natural order which he had perceived had sufficed to appease his thoughts, for a time.

Then he began to feel the accursed mental poison of doubt. Was this truly the way that the world should have worked? Paarthurnax's name, in the mortal tongue, translated to ambition – overlord – cruelty. It was in his nature to rule the way that his brother Alduin desired of him. And yet his brother had planted the seeds which would one day grow to force him to action. Paarthurnax was a dovah, and he was not gifted with the mortal trait of empathy. He felt no particular remorse for the methods he had used to keep the mortal races subjugated. But Alduin had begun to call himself a god. This was beyond his due place. Still, there was little for him to do about it. The mortal races remained weak. They had no true power of their own.

Then Kyne intervened. By Paarthurnax's perception, Kyne had taken pity on the mortal races. This was a foreign notion to a dovah. A lesser being, a weaker being, deserved nothing but to be ruled over, to be conquered. There was no sense in helping bring these beings to one's own level of power. If Paarthurnax were to gift a weaker dovah with his own power, the dovah would immediately turn on him, for he would have become the weaker one. This was the way of all dov. The notion of trust, as he understood it, was for mortals.

Yet it remained true that Kyne intervened on mortals' behalf, granting them the power to use the Voice themselves. And she had spoken to Paarthurnax. She had asked him to teach the mortals to refine their gift, for without discipline and training, it was of no use. Under any other circumstances, Paarthurnax would have declined, but Alduin had declared himself a god. He had presumed to call himself something much more than he was, and so he had become a danger to the world entirely. Paarthurnax saw an opportunity to have Alduin removed from power. He would have been foolish and weak not to take it.

And so Paarthurnax played his part in the subversion of his brother's rule. For the mortals, it had been a war of truly great scale. For him, it had been a brief time of training for a select few mortals, and then the inevitable final battle. It had been right here, at the Throat of the World, high above the rest of the struggle, that Alduin had confronted the mortals Paarthurnax had taught.

To his eternal regret, Paarthurnax had remained far away from the battle. Alduin had been apparently removed from existence with the Elder Scroll, the artifact to read—and perhaps write—in the mind-breaking language of reality itself, which the mortals had acquired without Paarthurnax's guidance. Paarthurnax had not regretted remaining apart from the battle, for he would have helped little against Alduin in physical conflict, but it remained true that Alduin had been his brother. Paarthurnax felt it should have been his place to acknowledge what he done to the being he had betrayed.

When Paarthurnax realized what had become of Alduin, that he had been cast into apparent nonexistence with the Elder Scroll, he knew that the mortals were wrong to believe his brother would be gone forever. The Elder Scroll had merely cast Alduin forwards in Time, so that he would reappear again, right there on the Throat of the World, at some point in the future. Paarthurnax did not know when. What he did know was that his work in protecting the world from Alduin's arrogance was not done. He took up residence atop the icy peak where Alduin would reappear, and he waited.

And he waited, and waited, for thousands of years. His accounts of mortal legend, delivered through his pupils of the Voice, told him that when Alduin returned to consume the world truly, he would be stopped by a Dovahkiin. A mortal with the powers of a dovah's mind. Paarthurnax had not known whether this legend was true, so he remained where he was.

Paarthurnax had been given something he did not quite understand what to do with. He had been given time, a great abundance of time, in which to do nothing but use his mind. At first, it had been agony. His natural desires had told him to fly free of this mountaintop, to destroy the mortals' resistance to the dovah, to assume the power he naturally craved. It was a craving. An urge which he needed to stop. If he were to act upon it, either he would destroy the world himself, or the mortals would destroy him, and no one would be left to stop Alduin, who would destroy the world instead.

His pupils in High Hrothgar followed a teaching called the Way of the Voice. In essence, it made the claim that the Voice was a gift from the gods, and was to be used not for war and conquest, but to celebrate the gods' divinity. Paarthurnax did not care for this interpretation. Kyne had given him a way to stand up to Alduin's rule, but he had already possessed the natural dov ability to use the Voice. Paarthurnax found himself far more interested in the idea that his powers were not to be used for conquest. He took this idea as far into his being as he could. He meditated on the Way of the Voice while he awaited Alduin's return, for thousands of years, in all of the solitude he might ever have.

Learning to control his natural urges had, in gentle terms, been a slow, laborious experience. Paarthurnax understood that it was for a good purpose. If he lost control of himself, Time itself would come to an end. Still, it was a constant struggle, one in which he did eventually reach some form of stability—but one which he had grown tired of before he had even started. To prevent himself from indulging even the slightest urges he felt, to immure his own desires, to fight his natural state of being every day, this way of living wore upon his mind the same way the elements wore upon his body. The only difference was that the toll taken on his body was visible to the eye.

One day, Alduin returned, just as Paarthurnax had predicted. He had hoped that his improved command of the Voice would allow him to overpower his brother, but it was of no use. The fight lasted seconds. Paarthurnax Alduin successfully fled, and Paarthurnax declined to give chase. There was nothing he could do that he had not done already. He knew Alduin would begin raising other dovah from their graves, and that they would wage war on the mortals immediately. But if Paarthurnax were to attempt to fight them himself, his fate would be sealed. He simply resumed waiting, for lack of any better choice.

Then the mortal legend came true. A man had slain the dovah Mirmulnir, who had waited for Alduin's return much like Paarthurnax had. In the process, the man had absorbed Mirmulnir's soul, preventing Alduin from simply raising him again. This was the mark of the Dovahkiin. Paarthurnax's pupils detected it as well, and using their command of the Voice, immediately summoned the man to their place of living on the mountainside.

Shortly afterward, Paarthurnax laid eyes upon the Dovahkiin for the first time. Their conversation had been brief. This was a deliberate action on Paarthurnax's part, and he even said so. He did not wish to indulge his desire to converse in depth. Even the slightest indulgence was a step in the direction of failure. The dovah would not let himself feel such pleasures. Still, he directed the Dovahkiin in his journey to defeat Alduin.

Events had unfolded quickly from there. The Dovahkiin obtained an Elder Scroll of his own, and used it to look back through the wound in Time left by Alduin's banishment, to witness the Dragonrend Thu'um for himself. Alduin confronted the Dovahkiin atop the Throat of the World, and fled once again, this time all the way to Sovngarde. Paarthurnax's former and future ally Odahviing was captured in the prison called Dragonsreach. The Jarl of Whiterun had required some persuasion, with Ulfric's war still in effect and his city in danger, but the Dovahkiin simply asked for some trust. After all, he had a plan.

Odahviing's capture and submission gave the Dovahkiin a pair of wings to ride to Alduin's remote fortress Skuldafn, where the link to the heavens lay. And in Sovngarde itself, the Dovahkiin gave battle to the World-Eater, and defeated him truly. Paarthurnax's brother was no more. It was not a day for him to rejoice.

Still, Paarthurnax knew better than to believe that the world's struggles would end with his brother's demise. The Dovahkiin returned directly from Sovngarde to the Throat of the World, where the dovah had congregated, awaiting the result of the final duel. Here, Paarthurnax had shared what he thought would be his final conversation for some time with the Dovahkiin. There was no reason for the Dovahkiin's purpose and power to die with Alduin. He distinctly recalled his closing words to the mortal man: _This is not the last of what you will write upon the currents of Time._

Paarthurnax had not yet known how true his words were.

Mere days later, the Dovahkiin had returned, suddenly desperate for counsel. He had ended Ulfric Stormcloak's war, and made an enemy of the group known as the Thalmor. Paarthurnax had been ready to resume his meditation. He had had plans for the remainder of his time in Mundus. They had made sense to him. But now he was quickly being pulled into the chaos of war, and this time from the mortals' own perspective. This was a war between mortals alone, and he, a dovah, was to have a role in it?

The question that had convinced Paarthurnax to take action was 'why'. Why should he intervene? He obtained his answer from Odahviing. The Thalmor were a threat to the world's existence, just like his brother had been. But the question which wore upon him now was 'how'. In his part in the uprising against Alduin, Paarthurnax had acted simply as a teacher, of a sort. He had not needed to indulge his taste for battle. And over the thousands of years during which Paarthurnax waited for his brother's return, his taste for battle had become a… Distaste. Taking part in battle was an immersion in those things he was tempted to do. There was no avoiding it.

He could only hope that he would remember his limits, and that he would stop before his urges made him exceed them. He would remind himself of what happened when Alduin exceeded his limits, but in truth, it was not relevant. Paarthurnax's own limits had become shades of gray. His control of his urges was no longer absolute.

After the attack by the Blades, Paarthurnax had retreated to his place on the Throat of the World to recover in safety. It took some time for his body to rid itself entirely of that poison. Whatever it was, for he did not know, it was more potent than anything he recognized as native to Skyrim.

And so, the Throat of the World was where he remained this day. He and Odahviing had succeeded in bringing together all of Skyrim's surviving dovah which they could find. Paarthurnax was the only one to remain in one place. The others roamed the western half of Skyrim, the war theater in which the Thalmor and the Empire had engaged one another. When they flew mainly only during dawn and dusk, and when they restrained themselves from roaring, the mortals never seemed to notice them.

Paarthurnax had ordered the dovah under his command to report to him for guidance if they noticed anything amiss. Besides that, they were free to harass the Thalmor as they saw fit, though Paarthurnax advised that they err on the side of caution. Alduin was no longer here to easily bring them back from bodily death.

So when he heard the beating of another dovah's wings, and the cry of another dovah's voice, Paarthurnax tightened inside and out, for he immediately regarded it as the herald of ill news. He declined to take flight himself, and instead remained where he sat upon the mountaintop.

The dovah approaching was Nosqoriik. One of the many to be restored to life by the World-Eater. His name would translate to strike-lightning-gale, and it was a fitting name for such a deft flier. He alighted just before Paarthurnax with the grace of a weightless being.

"Paarthurnax!" Nosqoriik offered a curt bow of the head in greeting, but did not wait for the customary exchange of Thu'ums. _"The Thalmor have struck. The gathering-place of the Imperial soldiers near east of Markarth is a burnt ruin."_

Ill news indeed. Nosqoriik's defiance of custom was certainly excused. _"Where are the Thalmor soldiers now? How many?"_

"_None were within sight. They have moved, I know not where."_

Paarthurnax thought quickly. Where would the Thalmor soldiers have moved? It was not in the nature of dov to think like one's enemy. That involved mortal ways of thought. But this was a war between mortals. He did his best to clear his mind of his own urges. What would a Thalmor commander desire?

A Thalmor commander would desire to conquer Skyrim, certainly. That much was definite. This meant they would be fighting an offensive war. Paarthurnax could appreciate this. Not only was ambition a trait native to the dov, it was even in Paarthurnax's own name.

He needed to focus. The Thalmor. Fighting like the Thalmor. Like mortals, who feared death. They would act to preserve themselves. They would not endanger themselves more than they needed to.

Still, the Thalmor were fighting offensively. There was no sense in lingering in the Imperial gathering place. If they were able to reduce the whole area, which Paarthurnax knew to contain thousands of soldiers, to a mere ruin, they would not wait long before striking their next target. And if the Thalmor were able to organize and execute such a massive strike, the native Reachmen had ceased to hinder their mobility. The Thalmor would move wherever they liked.

The wisest course of action, if they feared being attacked by dovah, was to retreat to Markarth. The city was made of stone and metal. Fire did little to it, and flying creatures would be easy targets there. But these were the Thalmor. They were not like the mortals native to Skyrim. They were arrogant, and aggressive, like dovah. They would continue their attack.

There were few other targets of great value nearby. When he thought about it, he realized there was only one that made sense to attack. The capital of Skyrim, the nexus of the Imperial Legion. It may have already been a smoking ruin itself. There was no time to lose.

Paarthurnax spread his wings and took to the air. _"We fly to Solitude!"_

**There was a plot hole in chapter eight. The Dragonborn didn't end the Civil War in this story until after he'd defeated Alduin, which means he couldn't have ended it before trapping Odahviing. I'm going by the assumption for now that the Dragonborn persuaded Jarl Balgruuf to proceed with the dragon-trapping plan while the war was still on, with no truce talks.**


	21. Thorald 4

Middas, 2:02 PM, 7th of Morning Star, 4E 202

Alftand

Getting here had been a journey worthy of songs in the mead halls. Not that anyone would ever sing about something so boring.

It had started the moment Thorald had pulled himself out of the water. The Karth River was freezing cold, and when he got out, he was soaked, with no change of clothes. If he stayed still, he'd probably freeze to death.

So he collected his armor and ran, on foot. Soon enough, he had to cast aside his breastplate, and his boots. And even his gauntlets. He left them all in the snow. They weighed him down too much.

The only thing he kept was his helmet, because it was enchanted to bolster his endurance. He needed that. In fact, it might have been what kept him on his feet.

And so he ran, eastward. Tullius' last orders were to join the Dragonborn's cause in Alftand, so that's what he was going to do. But he was running all through the night. Within the first couple hours, he had made it into the Pale. He could tell because it was punishingly icy cold here. Good thing he was a Nord.

There were wild animals here and there. Wolves, horkers, even the odd troll. He ran right past them. Didn't even care. The pain in his bones was already bad enough. Being mauled by a giant frost troll couldn't have made it much worse.

He hugged the coast, knowing it'd get him to Dawnstar eventually. And that's exactly what happened. When he arrived, it was almost seven in the morning. And he was about ready to collapse. It'd been such a long run. He hadn't stopped to rest, not once.

There weren't a lot of buildings to pick from. Dawnstar was basically just a few rows of wooden cabins wrapped around a little inlet anyway. Most of them didn't matter.

Thorald went straight for the inn. His lungs were burning, his muscles were burning, his eyes were burning, everything hurt. He practically fell in through the front door.

For lack of anything else to offer (besides his sword, which he'd never surrender), Thorald just took off his helmet and offered it as pay for a room and some food and drink. The innkeeper had tried to give it to him for free, but he'd declined. Just because he was practically falling unconscious on the spot didn't mean he needed charity. In the end, Thorald settled for a change of warm clothing, free of charge. And a map to get from Dawnstar to Alftand. He didn't know where it was, really.

He slept for a little longer than he'd have liked. Had a lot to recover from, he supposed. The moment he got up, he changed into his new clothes, stuffed some food down his mouth, and he was off. Thankfully, this time he had a horse.

That was a bit of a story of its own. Dawnstar didn't have a stable. Thorald just persuaded a random hunter to let him use her horse to ride to Alftand. Important war business. Letting her know about the attack on Solitude sweetened the deal a bit.

On horseback, things were a whole lot easier, and thanks to the map, he didn't even get lost. It turned out Alftand was on the far side of the border with the Winterhold. All the way up in the mountains, too. Thorald rode practically nonstop until he got there. Only an hour or so of rest now and then. He was sort of in a hurry here.

They'd made it easy to get to Alftand's entrance. There was a sort of camp set up on the mountainside, with torches and tents and sentries and such. When Thorald dismounted, he was met by a nice young Nord who took his horse for him, and showed him to the lift.

Thus concluded the heroic part of his journey, and thus began the strange part.

Thorald had never visited a dwarven ruin before. He didn't really know what to expect. He knew that dwarven metal was sort of bronze-gold-colored, and that was about it. He definitely didn't expect a steam-powered platform that rose and fell on rails of gear teeth.

He stood on this platform, accompanied by a pair of guards. One of them pulled a lever in the middle of the platform's surface, and the floor dropped out from under Thorald's feet. He was descending into the earth. The walls of underground rock were rising past the golden bars of the moving chamber.

It went on for… He didn't know how long. Half a minute? The platform stopped in front of what Thorald figured was the entrance to the dwarven ruin. The doors swung open, and he was looking at… Something that really didn't look like a ruin.

There was a nice, open sort of room here, all clean stone tiles, with a few doorways on the left and right going off places. The room was lit by magical torches that burned like the sun. Half a dozen guards stood at attention along the walls.

People were passing through now and then, mostly Nords, a few Imperials, a few Dunmer. They were all wearing light short-sleeved civilian clothes. Even the armed and armored guards were dressed light. Made sense. It was plenty warm down here.

At the far end, there was a man at a desk, doing something with stacks of papers. The guards motioned him to that man. The moment Thorald stepped out of the little moving chamber, the doors closed again, and the platform was rising back up. Right, then.

Thorald pulled off his jacket and slung it over his shoulder as he approached the desk. The man at the desk was an old, scholarly-looking Nord. He looked up at the newcomer with raised eyebrows. Not surprising. Thorald was looking kind of scruffy after days of travel.

"Welcome to Alftand," the man said. "First time here?"

"Yessir," Thorald answered without missing a beat. "I'm here to join the Dragonborn's cause."

"Your name?"

"Thorald Gray-Mane of Whiterun. You can leave the Whiterun part out, I reckon."

The man wrote something down on a sheet of paper. "We can see about finding you a living space. Be advised, here in Alftand, we pull our own weight. There's much to do. You'll be assigned to one of the work teams. Any special skills I should know about? It may affect your placement."

"I served in the Great War," Thorald said, oddly without emotion. "And I was a captive of the Thalmor for almost a year."

The man looked up at him again, blinking a couple times as he refocused.

Thorald took it as a cue to keep going. "I have plenty of reason to want to battle them, I think."

"A warrior, then." The man nodded. "On your right, you'll find the living quarters. There are a few spare changes of clothes in the bathing space. Come back here when you're ready, and you can take the combat test."

Half an hour later, Thorald was in a completely different environment. Another one of those big open rooms had been converted into an obstacle course, with a bit of an open space at the end covered in cloth padding floor. He recognized many of the course's elements from the Imperial Legion's training regimen, but others were new.

He'd taken the opportunity to get himself looking like a soldier for the first time in … A long while. Not only did he wash his body off, and change into a new set of loose summer wear, and shave his face clean, but he also found a pair of scissors and cropped his hair down to just under an inch long. It wasn't Nord-like, but it was practical.

There were guards _everywhere_. Thorald imagined he was being treated like any newcomer—with a minimum of trust. But here, a man, another Nord, who'd clearly once been an Imperial officer, was waiting for him. He was wearing the same light clothing as everyone else, but he had a legionnaire's sword at his waist, and he had the same short haircut as Thorald himself.

"What's your name, soldier?" the officer asked. He was around Thorald's age, and just as thickly built. Thorald liked him already.

"Thorald Gray-Mane."

"Really? You're a Gray-Mane?" The officer's eyebrows shot up.

"Yes, sir. I'm the one the Thalmor abducted for a while."

"Pleasure to have your acquaintance. I'm Captain Jalan. You still remember your training routine?"

"I'll give it a shot," Thorald smirked.

The first thing he did was take the sword off his waist and put it away. Then, calisthenics. Before he even touched the obstacle course, he'd done a dozen different fast-paced exercises, under the officer's close supervision.

"Your form's a little rusty," Captain Jalan said, when Thorald was about halfway through, "but I'm impressed with your strength, carry on."

Thorald didn't really care. He was already a mass of aches from his journey to Alftand. His form could take the fall for that.

Next was the obstacle course. There were nets to climb, beams to balance along, steps to ascend, a big tall ladder at one point, it was mostly Legion routine. There were a couple obstacles he didn't recognize. At one point, he had to run across an uneven rocky surface that'd been covered with some kind of slippery grease, and he very nearly fell over a couple times. And at another point, there was a pair of lines painted on the floor, about eight feet apart, that he had to make a running jump across. He landed on his belly, but he made it.

By the time he was done, Thorald was back in the mindset of a legionnaire. He was also entirely exhausted. Gasping for breath, resting his hands on his knees, wiping his mouth with his arm. Captain Jalan just walked up to him with an armful of what looked like leather straps all twisted and tied together.

"Now for the part with the swords," Jalan smiled.

The leather straps were part of a weight vest, of course, to sort of simulate a legionnaire's armor. There were lead bricks fitted into it, felt like. Thorald thought his knees might buckle out from under him, but he stood still as he got his lead-cored wooden sword and practice shield, and he was sent to the sparring area.

There was another soldier here, an Imperial, standing within the circle of padded flooring, not wearing any weights, but similarly armed. Quite a bit younger than Thorald. Maybe another enlisted legionnaire? He didn't know.

The captain didn't need to tell them what to do. The man started in Thorald's direction, shield raised. Thorald remained where he was. The man would reach him in maybe five seconds.

A few thoughts went through the Nord's head all at once. He was probably skipping a lot of steps on account of being a Gray-Mane. He was also so tired he could've gone to sleep right there. In conclusion, he didn't have time for this rubbish. He was a Nord, he had things to do, and he was getting irked.

When the man closed in for some kind of stabbing thrust, Thorald _smashed_ the wooden blade out of the way with the edge of his shield. The man's sword almost left his hand. In the same motion, Thorald kicked him hard right in the shield. Less of a proper kick and more of a shove. The man stumbled, tried to recover, but Thorald just shoved him onto on his back, and next thing he knew, Thorald's sword was at his throat.

Captain Jalan barked with laughter. "Ha! Have a long trip here, Gray-Mane?"

Thorald twirled his sword and passed it to his shield hand, helping the poor Imperial boy up off the floor. "You can say that again, sir."

Jalan paused, then inclined his head. "Come with me. There's a special assignment I want you to be a part of."

Thorald agreed to hear Jalan out, but not before he got some rest. It had become hard to walk. He didn't remember what happened next, but he got to sleep in some random bunk. The dwarven beds were all just plain stone, but someone had covered them with straw padding, which was nice.

When he woke up, his face was a tad stubbly again. Must've been out for a little while. No one else was in the room, which was odd. This must've been the officer's quarters, or something. There were a few beds, a few desks and chairs… Bookshelf, miniature armory… The usual, really. But no people.

"I was wondering when you would wake up," a thin, elegant voice said. Not Altmer. Something else.

A wood elf wandered into view. He was dressed in the same light clothing as everyone, but a bit darker in hut. "The officers will be back soon, so we do not have long to talk."

"Who are you?" Thorald rubbed his eyes and sat up. The wood elf was smiling at him. He didn't like it.

"Your new contact," the elf said. "… Stormcloak."

Thorald narrowed his eyes.

The elf went on. He was sounding increasingly smug. He leaned back against the far wall, arms crossed. "You can't think you'd have evaded our reach. You're not the first asset of ours to penetrate Alftand. Now, we must be quick. Listen carefully."

"Right," the Nord murmured. It occurred to him that he'd left his sword in the training area. He was unarmed. But this was a Thalmor agent.

"The men here are about to place you-"

Suddenly, Thorald roared with beastlike fury, and leapt out of his bed with his hands outstretched, ready to wring the wood elf's scrawny little neck.

But before he could make it, the elf had ducked out of the way, and cast some sort of mage armor spell on himself. He was laughing. "All right! All right, calm down."

"What is this?" Thorald stopped, but kept his hands on guard. His eyes darted to the mini-armory. He could probably grab a sword before the elf could cast another spell, if he was fast. "Who are you?"

"I'm sorry about the theatrics. Please, relax." The elf raised his hands in surrender. "My name is Lenve."

This wasn't answering Thorald's questions. He kept his guard up. "What was that for?"

"To see if you're a Thalmor agent. I'm sorry about that, again. But can you blame us for checking?"

So that had been a test. Thorald lowered his hands. Lenve did too. "Have you actually caught any agents this way?"

"As a matter of fact, yes," Lenve smiled grimly. "We can't do this on everyone, because they'd wise up to it before long, but it works every time on the agents we do it to."

"… How do you know _that?_"

"I happen to have worked for the Thalmor. I'm the one who smuggled the Dragonborn's gear into the embassy for him. Everyone who knows my face is dead now, and I know how they work, what they do." Something dark entered Lenve's voice. Thorald quickly recognized it as hatred.

"So if I'd gone along with making you my contact and all…"

"Come in, boys!" Lenve called out.

Four men in full steel armor came in the door. They already had their swords out. They smiled welcomingly at Thorald. That was a sight.

"Their blades are poisoned," Lenve said mildly, pointing to the nearest one's sword. "Paralytics. If one of them cut you, you'd drop."

"Please don't cut me," said Thorald.

One of the men chuckled.

Lenve turned back to Thorald. "How would you like to be part of the Dragonborn's plan to fight the Thalmor?"

A worthy question. And a critical one, he realized. This could be the moment where Thorald signed on for a suicide mission. He might never see his family again. This might be a death trap. "Sounds good."

Ten minutes later, Lenve was escorting Thorald through a great big cavern, deeper underground than anything else he'd seen so far. This was the Alftand cathedral, he'd been told, but it didn't really look like a cathedral. It looked like a stairway up to an enclosed sort of area.

They passed by more guards than he'd seen anywhere else. Must've been two dozen in this room alone. Thorald glanced to the wood elf. "High security?"

"You'll see why," Lenve smirked. "Can't say anything yet, too much company."

So they went up the stairs, and through a couple of big thick solid metal doors, which Lenve opened up with odd little tube-shaped keys. On the far side was a chamber with a staircase spiraling down around some kind of ringed dwarven machine. Thorald didn't know a thing about it.

Lenve went down the stairs, so Thorald followed. There was another one of those moving platforms at the bottom. He recognized the floor-mounted lever. And the barred walls, a moment later. A moment after that, he realized this was the _top_ of the platform's path, not the bottom. He swallowed.

"Where does this go?" he asked as he stepped inside, trying to sound at least a little confident.

Lenve wordlessly pulled the lever. The doors swung shut, the gears groaned to life, and they were on their way down.

The first ten seconds or so were spent in silence. The wood elf looked like he was getting ready to say something.

"The Thalmor understand," he said, " that we've melted down a massive amount of dwarven metal to build an automaton. A big magical machine that we'll power with an artifact called the Staff of Magnus, which is currently buried deep in the ruins of Labyrinthian. The people in the know are calling it the Black Machine, so I expect that'll be what the Thalmor are calling it too."

"Are you serious?" Thorald blinked. He had no idea what he'd just heard. "That's the Dragonborn's plan?"

"_No_," Lenve said, like he'd just been asked if he'd like to try selling some skooma. "That's what the Thalmor think the Dragonborn's plan is. It's complete rubbish. The only true thing about it is that we've melted down a massive amount of dwarven metal. No one cares about the Staff of Magnus, and we don't even know how to build automatons, that's ridiculous. Black Machine? Come on."

"So…"

"You'll see." Lenve smirked again.

They had plenty of time to think. Something occurred to Thorald. "How did you know to call me Stormcloak? That's what my interrogator called me in Northwatch Keep."

Lenve paused. "Hm. You may not know this, but your capture was actually the subject of quite a bit of controversy. I heard about it in the embassy. You're a member of a major house of Skyrim. Your abduction was a bad move on the Thalmor's part, though of course, they couldn't exactly back out of it. I knew they captured you on suspicion of being a Stormcloak supporter, and wanted to at least try to convert you into an asset."

"It didn't work. They didn't break me."

"So I see! I'm impressed. Not many have the heart to withstand the Thalmor's torment. I wouldn't."

"What do you do for people who _haven't_ spent a year being tortured, then?"

"Well, the conversation usually takes a lot longer, but there's always one of two outcomes. They agree to participate in the Dragonborn's project, or they're executed on the spot. We've never had a single person pass the test and then decline."

"Welcome to the land of the Nords," Thorald grinned.

"I'm not so sure about that, Thorald. You'd be surprised! There are quite a few races involved in this. Unlike Jarl Ulfric, the Dragonborn doesn't discriminate. We've even recruited a few Altmer, of Imperial citizenry."

"And a few wood elves. Bosmer."

"That's right." Lenve nodded. "I am a Bosmer. I was born in Valenwood."

"Well, what are you doing all the way up here?"

"Fighting the Thalmor, of course. Do you think they have any more love for the wood elves than for the Nords? They don't even have any love for other high elves. They _killed_ my family in one of their purges. When I was working at the Thalmor embassy, I was calling myself Malborn. I suppose you could have called me a sleeper agent."

Lenve was a very animated fellow, it seemed. He was all easygoing and sociable even when he was talking about his family being killed. He'd been a bit angrier-sounding for that part, but still. This elf was fun to be around. "Is Lenve your real name?"

"I've used maybe five or six aliases for extended periods of time, Malborn being the last. But yes, Lenve is what my parents named me. I've no reason to hide who I am, have I? If the Thalmor want to get to me now, they'll have to get through Alftand first."

"By sending an agent to talk to you alone in the officers' quarters."

"… Poison swords, all right?"

Thorald rode out the next minute or so in silence. He was starting to grow worried by how deep underground they were going. Where were they going, to the center of Nirn?

Eventually, though, the platform did stop, and the barred doors swung open on their own. There was a short, empty hallway to a set of solid doors up ahead. Thorald was worried what he'd find on the other side. His imagination failed him.

Lenve pushed the doors open for him, then stood aside.

Thorald's imagination could not have prepared him for this. He was looking at a place that obviously didn't belong on the mortal plane. It was a … Cavern. Had he thought the cathedral cavern was big? This was _colossal._ The roof vaulted so high it looked like the sky, and it was covered in dots of white light. So the night sky, then.

The actual cavern just looked alien. He didn't know how it fit into his world. Everything was lit by giant glowing mushrooms, and there was cyan fog everywhere, which made it impossible to see that far into the cavern. Everything seemed to be either black or cyan. It was even warmer than Alftand in here, and a little bit more humid, too. And it was eerily quiet compared to a normal dwarven ruin. The only sound was a faint high-pitched ringing.

The doors opened onto a big, broad stone platform, which someone had lit with balls of magelight just kind of floating there just over the floor. It looked out over a tiny little dwarven building, which was odd because this whole place was indoors anyway, right? It was as wide as a house, but nowhere near as deep. Strange.

Something was lighting up the building from behind. A massive unearthly glow, which made the building practically more of a silhouette.

"Blackreach," Lenve said, walking up to stand beside Thorald. "It connects Alftand, Mzinchaleft and Raldbthar."

Thorald opened his mouth to say something, then stopped. Then tried again, and stopped. Then, "Why is the sun rising behind that building?"

"I'm afraid I don't know. We're not heading that way anyway."

Lenve lead Thorald down the stairs and over a stone path that had probably once been immaculately neat. There were a few buildings here. Not terribly many. It was like a little dwarven village.

They went past most of the buildings, though, to a staircase leading up to another one of those raised platforms. This time, instead of leading to a door, it led to… A bit of a depression, and then a wall. It took him a moment to notice the golden ropes above them.

There were two of them, running parallel, about six feet apart, just high enough that he couldn't reach them even by jumping. They ran above the depression in the platform. One end was held up by a big solid metal support. The other end trailed off into the distance, supported every now and then by forked pillars. It was so random.

A moment after that, he noticed the button. There was a freestanding golden… Stand-thing, about as high as Thorald's waist, just before the depression, and on top of it was a glowing cyan button. Lenve pressed it, and it made a metallic clicking sound.

"What is that?" Thorald frowned.

"You'll see," Lenve said with obvious mirth.

"Would you stop saying that?"

"Absolutely not."

So they just stood there and waited. And waited. Thorald eventually sat down on the platform. Lenve just leaned against the button-stand.

Some amount of time passed. Thorald spent it just staring at his surroundings. There were glowing mushrooms everywhere. Some of them were a little taller than he was, and some of them towered as high as evergreen trees. He wondered how this place had come to be. It didn't look even a little like anything he'd seen in Skyrim.

From somewhere down the cables came a strange mechanical noise. Like the white noise in Alftand. As it grew louder, something hanging beneath the golden ropes emerged from the fog. It looked like a giant golden egg, on its side. As it approached, Thorald noticed it had a sort of glassy window on the front.

The giant egg thing was getting close. Thorald backed away. Lenve just stood and smiled as it stopped right in front of them, right over the depression in the platform, looming dangerously.

Up close, Thorald could see all the rivets holding it together. And that it had windows on both front and back. And that it was held on the ropes by an ingenious set of wheels that reminded him of pulley assemblies. A rectangular section of the plates sank inwards and slid aside. What _was_ this thing?

Lenve stepped inside the egg through the hole. Thorald followed him inside, speechless.

From inside, he could see out both the left and the right. The windows were actually rather big, and held together with smooth metal bars. They offered a good field of vision. There were metal benches (of a sort) on either side of the egg. Thorald guessed they could hold ten or fifteen people. And there were metal bars along the walls, that was nice.

There was a lever on the golden ceiling of the egg. The ceiling! It wasn't very big, but it pointed straight down. Lenve grasped it and pushed it to the left, in the direction the cables went. The sliding section closed again.

Lenve grasped one of the wall bars silently. Thorald did the same.

Then the egg _lurched_. Thorald almost fell on his back. They were moving forwards, and fast. The egg was vibrating ever so slightly, humming with motion. Every time they passed through one of those forked pillars, he could hear it whooshing past, even through these metal walls.

"This is the shuttle to the Silent City," Lenve said. "All three dwarven ruins have shuttles like these."

Thorald gaped silently.

"There's a central area between the ruins. It doesn't have a corresponding city to access from the surface. It's called the Silent City, I don't know who named it that."

The shuttle was moving blisteringly fast. If the windows didn't have the glass coverings on the bars, Thorald probably wouldn't have been able to hear Lenve over the wind. Every couple seconds, they passed over a support. _Whoosh. … Whoosh. … Whoosh._

There were no buildings beneath them, but they were passing through open cavern still. Thorald could see a stone path running alongside the bases of the pillars. The mushrooms were a lot more sparse here. It was hard to see very much. Too dark.

"There are all kinds of theories for why the Dwemer used flexible cables instead of solid rails. And why the shuttles aren't any larger than they are. Blackreach was never supposed to have that many people in it, though. No more than a few thousand, certainly."

"But there's enough room here for… Millions!"

"You're right, and they probably could've colonized it if they liked, but they… Didn't. You know, this place used to be infested with Falmer."

Thorald raised his eyebrows. He knew a little about the Falmer. Eyeless, pale-skinned monsters who had maybe once been elves. They were a menace.

"Then the Dragonborn came through here." Lenve chuckled. "You can guess how that went."

Actually, the Nord wasn't guessing how anything went. He was still struggling with the fact that this place existed. He'd probably been riding over it on his way over from Dawnstar. How many people could have known about such a vast space?

Not very many, apparently. That test with Lenve earlier suddenly made a lot more sense. And the double-doors with the strange keys. No one in Alftand knew that Blackreach even existed. But what about it was worth keeping secret? Was _he_ allowed to know that? Probably not, actually.

The shuttle was starting to slow back down. A glowing yellow circle appeared someplace way ahead in the fog. Not a circle, a ball. A sphere. An absolutely massive glowing orb, hanging high above the floor of the cavern, like an underground sun.

Then the rest of the city became visible. There were buildings and towers and roads and waterways and bridges all over the place. One of the towers actually went all the way up to the ceiling of the cavern. It couldn't have been bigger than Whiterun minus the Cloud District, but that was still huge.

The shuttle came to a halt at another one of those platforms, right amid all the buildings. The door slid open, and Lenve stepped out. Thorald followed silently.

"The others are staying in the debate hall," Lenve said. "That's the big building beneath the orb."

"Aye. What _is_ that thing?"

Lenve shrugged. "An orb that's hanging from the ceiling on cables and glowing."

Thorald stepped down the staircase carefully, and started walking in the direction of the orb thing. It wasn't too far. Not three minutes' walk, really. Thorald didn't feel like he was really here. He felt like he was just floating along, like a spectral being in a dream. Besides that he wasn't able to wake up.

There were a few different staircases to climb on the way up to the debate hall. The Dwemer really didn't believe in handrails, seemed like. He just walked very carefully. Lenve followed close behind.

The debate hall was surrounded by a big stone wall. There was an open arch to walk through, big enough that a mammoth could probably have fit under it. And on the other side was a nice big stone courtyard. There were doors off to side towers and stairways up to the wall and that sort of thing. But the most unusual thing here was that it was obviously already home to other people.

For one thing, the courtyard was full of tents. It just… Was. No campfires or anything, just rows and rows of tents. For another, there were a couple guards standing at attention, on either side of the arch. Thorald hadn't realized they were guards until one of them moved. They'd just looked like golden statues, but no, they were men in armor, with sheathed swords and everything.

The armor was confusing. It looked like Nordic plate armor, sort of. The designs engraved in the plates were all swirling and graceful. But the plates were made of dwarven metal.

"Lenve," one of the guards called out. That was a dark elf accent. "Who's this?"

"New recruit," the wood elf answered, walking up to them as he spoke. "Thorald Gray-Mane."

"Pleasure to meet you, Thorald!" the dark elf called out.

Thorald nodded silently. They were entering the debate hall now.

There were more people milling around in here. Thorald quickly realized they were _all_ wearing that strange golden armor. Some of them had their helmets on, some didn't. Some were sitting around and chatting, some were sparring. There must have been a couple hundred of them.

"What is this?" Thorald turned to Lenve, wide-eyed. "Why are these people down here?"

Lenve raised his eyebrows. He looked like he hadn't even expected to be asked. "Well, this is the Black Machine, of course."

**In the actual game, Alftand's cathedral is connected to Blackreach by a door, not a lift, but because I've needed to make Blackreach much larger (so it can actually connect between all the exits), I've decided to make it much deeper underground in kind. This vast increase in size is also why the shuttle exists.**


	22. Ancano 5

Tirdas, 8:10 PM, 6th of Morning Star, 4E 202

Hjaalmarch

And everything had been going so well.

The attack on Solitude was planned in three phases. First, Thalmor scout pairs would establish observation points all around the city, under cover of night. Second, once the coast was clear, the regulars would attack the city head-on. Third, once the city's defenses had been softened, and any counterattack had been absorbed, the 14th Unit would step in and take Solitude.

The first phase was an obvious success. The scouts made it to their destinations undetected, and awaited further developments. Not much to report.

The second phase was disrupted early on. Somehow, the Legion had noticed their main force, and was already preparing for battle. Ancano hadn't expected this, but he'd prepared for it anyway. This was why the regulars were being sent in first. They would take the brunt of the damage so that the 14th Unit wouldn't have to. Until the gate was breached, the mages would remain hidden in the forest, far from the center of conflict.

Ancano himself had decided to direct this phase personally. He remained a safe distance away from the actual fray. There was a school of thought that said that a leader ought to lead his men into combat, not follow them. This struck Ancano as idiotic. The most expendable part of one's force was supposed to go in front. They would be the first to bear the worst of the enemy's force, after all. Since when were leaders expendable? Idiotic.

In any case, the coming attack on Solitude was simply exciting for him. He'd never gotten to witness a proper battle firsthand. That business with the staging area didn't count. He was watching his elves advance on the city gates with shields raised, a battering ram at the ready, everything according to plan.

Then he'd gotten the singular privilege of watching his elves being roasted alive.

The dragons. The gods-damned dragons. How could he have failed to prepare for this contingency? One moment, everything had been proceeding normally, arrows were being exchanged, ground was being gained—and then there was an ear-splitting explosion of flame. The shockwave actually knocked Ancano onto his back from a hundred yards away.

It was impossible for their archers to aim at them properly. It was nighttime, and they were flying every which way. Ancano couldn't even count them. He thought there might have been three, maybe four. They swooped down again and again, painting the battlefield with blasts of fire every time, as though it made a difference at this point. Ancano had called for a retreat, but there were hardly any elves left alive to do so. Two thousand regulars had taken part in the opening wave, and not four hundred escaped with their lives.

The third phase, of course, never happened. Commander Lestra must have taken the survival of her mages very seriously, because they stayed right where they were in the forest. They didn't do a damn thing.

Now Ancano and his elves were hiding someplace south of the Karth River. The general didn't even know exactly where. West of Hjaalmarch's marshes, in some hilly forested area. The 14th Unit, and the remnants of the regulars, were a mile or so away from the riverbank, hidden in the trees. They offered decent protection from prying eyes high above, at least.

Ancano could have been much angrier than he was. A typical military officer would be giving his subordinates a stern lecture. A typical Thalmor officer would be throwing a temper tantrum. Ancano was sitting on an armchair in his personal tent, looking down at a map of Skyrim, fingers steepled in front of him. A single officer sat across from him.

Neither of them spoke.

It was a good opportunity to think. The Thalmor were fairly good at traveling stealthily. He was skeptical, to say the least, that the dragons had somehow managed to track them all the way through the Reach without being spotted themselves. More likely, one of them had stumbled upon the remains of the staging area. Had they simply sent some of their number to every possible destination of Ancano's elves? They were numerous enough to, though whether they were organized enough was another question entirely.

Ultimately, it mattered not. The Thalmor had learned their lesson. The mistakes made during the attack on Solitude would not happen again. And if they did, he would gladly have Commander Lestra executed. That would be nice.

Ancano looked up at the officer sitting across from him. None other than the Prime Justiciar, of course. Such a gentle fellow.

"Well, that went well," Ancano said.

Elevir laughed nervously.

"Please, relax, be at ease. You're not here to be disciplined." There was nothing to discipline him for. Elevir had helped organize the retreat, and was personally responsible for wounding one of the dragons with some destruction spell or other.

"Then what am I here for, General?" Elevir's hands were folded together in his lap. He looked like he wanted to go drown himself in the river. It didn't make Ancano as satisfied as it once had. Tormenting his subordinates was so… Boring, these days.

"How many of our regulars survived?" Ancano's question would only have worked in an organization like the Thalmor. Any regulars who weren't killed in combat would be completely uninjured now. There were no wounded. Restoration magic.

"Three hundred fifty five," Elevir said, his voice hollow.

"And do you have the document?"

Elevir nodded and laid out a rolled paper on top of the map. He flattened it out to show a list of names, handwritten. The ink was still wet.

Ancano reached out and laid his thumb and three fingers on the center of the paper, rotating it towards him. He scanned over the list of names. These were the surviving regular officers. Most of them had been at his side, away from the worst of the fight, but in the chaos of the retreat, he wished to make sure.

The general smiled softly when he reached Major Sielar's name. He'd liked that fellow. More importantly, Sielar was the only person to even know where a certain asset of the Thalmor's was being kept.

"We're sending the regulars back to Markarth," Ancano said. "And following them there."

"But not the mages?"

"Not the mages. No."

Elevir looked at Ancano expectantly.

"The mages are going to Labyrinthian," Ancano said patiently. "They have a staff to retrieve. Frankly, we'd be getting in their way. There are too few regulars to help."

That would do as a plausible reason to retreat to Markarth, he thought. Elevir seemed to believe it, which made things easier.

Elevir seemed to be thinking about something grave. He eventually fixed his gaze right on Anacano's eyes. It was a little uncomfortable. "Do you think this will help?"

"Retreating to Markarth?"

"Fighting in this war," Elevir said.

Ancano shrugged. "I'm told that elven supremacy is the only truth."

"Well, certain other things must be true as a result. Doesn't every elven life count? What even happens to us when we die?"

"I'm… Told that we will be bound to Mundus until such a time that we ascend to our birthright of divinity."

"Sure, but what do you actually think?"

Ancano silently returned Elevir's gaze. He remained entirely impassive.

"Sorry," Elevir mumbled.

"No, don't apologize," Ancano said. What was he _saying?_ What was this? "We would be fools to have no questions about what we do. And as far as I am concerned, this war is an unfortunate inevitability, courtesy of the Dragonborn."

"I'd, I'd like to kill him," Elevir said cheerfully.

Ancano chuckled. "Yes. This sentiment has been echoed in the past weeks more times than I would care to count."

Another pause. Elevir must have had quite a lot on his mind. He actually glanced around the tent, as though looking for eavesdroppers. "Do you think Talos is indeed a false god?"

"Well, if a _man _can ascend to godhood, anyone can," Ancano smirked. "I doubt it truly matters in our affairs. Our plans are the same either way."

"Fair enough," Elevir said. He seemed to believe that too. "I'd better go notify the other officers."

"You're dismissed," Ancano said absently. Elevir nodded respectfully and showed himself out.

Ancano remained where he was seated. He leaned back, ran his hand through his hair. This seemed like a good plan. The 14th Unit would handle the heavy lifting, and his elves would return to Markarth to recover. And yet… That meeting with Elevir just now had left a bad taste in his mouth.

It wasn't because they were recovering from a horrifying failure of a battle. And it wasn't because the Prime Justiciar had such deep questions about the system he'd been tasked with enforcing. It wasn't as though they hadn't occurred to Ancano. They seemed almost standard issue among Thalmor officers. It was something the general had said himself.

_If a man can ascend to godhood, anyone can._

Ancano had always taken it for granted that the Thalmor banned Talos worship. It seemed like just another gesture of elven supremacy. No particular meaning behind it. The Thalmor ensured that everyone in their controlled territories remembered who was truly in power. Of course they would ban something like this. It wasn't even that noteworthy in the long run.

Truth be told, he'd never even been involved in the Thalmor's more suppressive activities. He'd never wanted anything to do with that business. There was a reason he'd assigned himself to the most remote corner of the world he could find. Anything to get away from the sort of business the Thalmor generally involved itself in. Of course he'd always taken the Thalmor's suppressive actions for granted.

And yet… _If a man can ascend to godhood…_

He'd always taken the Thalmor's claims for granted, too. He was essentially destined to join them. Once it'd become clear how talented he was in the arcane arts, of course he'd be flagged for recruitment. And how could he say no? Subscribing to the Thalmor ideal of elven supremacy was a natural part of that recruitment. It seemed like a pleasant enough idea to Ancano, that he would actually be a god someday.

But what even made elves any more predisposed to divinity? Was it because they could, in theory, all become gods at once? Ancano had no idea what would happen when millions of Altmer all ascended to divine power. He wondered if they'd be able to get along. They barely did as mortals, it seemed. But they were elves. They were high elves. They would and could achieve the godhood they deserved.

_Anyone can._

Of course the Thalmor would ban Talos worship. It was the greatest affront to elven supremacy that Tamriel had ever seen. If the story of Talos were true, if a man had truly become a god, then a man had actually done more to achieve the Thalmor's sort of goals than the Thalmor had. Apparently, undoing creation was unnecessary for men. And if it were merely a race to gain divine power before anyone else did…

Ancano reached down next to his chair and fumbled with his canvas pack. Pulled out a silver goblet and a bottle of wine from Alinor, poured himself a drink.

The wine tasted like home. Well, mainly it tasted like alcohol, which bit his tongue unpleasantly. But it also tasted like home. This was the first sort of wine he'd ever tasted. It was nothing like that Nord stuff. That was essentially glorified poisonous grape juice.

This was much better. The gardens of Alinor were tended to by the most skilled… Most… What? Ancano was suddenly taken by a strange longing for the house he'd grown up in. He missed his fortress of twigs.

He didn't remember finishing the goblet, or finishing the bottle. Blearily, and with no small amount of effort, he went through the motions of buttoning the tent flaps, brushing his teeth, getting out of his robes. It was cold in here. He was eager to get into his bedroll.

Ancano shielded his eyes with a gloved hand. This far north in Winterhold, the sun constantly glared down on the ice without ever melting it. It mattered not. He had his duties to attend to in the College of Winterhold.

The bridge across the ravine to the college proper was in such terrible condition. He didn't know how people weren't falling to their deaths on a daily basis trying to cross this. At one point, the low stone guardrails had crumbled away. As had some of the actual stone tiles. The film of ice everywhere was even slipperier than he remembered. He walked slowly, deliberately, towards the college gates.

But before he got within twenty paces of them, they flew open. There was a blinding flash of lightning. Ancano squinted and stumbled backwards. The lightning was snapping and sparking everywhere. He couldn't see past it. Someone was walking out of the light. The Arch-Mage. He would have recognized those robes anywhere.

Savos Aren's voice boomed in his ears. "_ANCANO GRAYLOCK!"_

The robed Dunmer was striding straight at him. He turned, slipping and sliding on the ice, and ran straight back across the bridge. The elf had to run faster. He knew the Arch-Mage was bearing down upon him, he could feel it, he dared not to turn and look, that would slow him down too much.

That voice didn't stop. "You have forsaken your comrades, and you will pay for what you have done! _DON'T YOU RUN_, Ancano Graylock! You will _PAY—"_

Ancano slipped on the start of the ramp down to the ground. He hit the tiles hard on his elbows, tumbled over the stones, landed flat on his back. Something must have broken, because he couldn't get back up.

He groaned silently, closed his eyes, tried to cast a healing spell on himself. No luck. His magic was gone. It wasn't there to protect him anymore, it was just... Gone.

The Arch-Mage had gone silent. Something was very wrong. Ancano almost didn't want to open his eyes. But he had to, he had to face what was coming.

A hooded Justiciar's face loomed in Ancano's vision. Leaning down right over him. The Justiciar smiled with bloodstained teeth.

Ancano screamed, but no sound came.

He almost tore his bedroll apart with his thrashing awakening. No alarm clock. He'd just woken up. His head felt like it was going to burst. With the skull rupturing and bits of bone flying everywhere and everything. The elf's temples wouldn't stop throbbing. He rubbed his slitted, golden eyes, slowly sat upright. It was still dark outside. No light was coming in through the tent flaps. His clock was around here someplace. Midnight? He thought it read about midnight.

That bottle of wine had worked through him awfully fast. He absentmindedly cast a healing spell on himself, in hopes it would alleviate his headache a little, and slipped into his robes and shoes. At least he still remembered how to put his clothes on.

It was even colder outside. Dark, too. He didn't trust this place enough to wander far from his tent. Ostensibly, there were guards on duty, but he didn't see them. Nor did he want to look for them, for that matter.

Unfortunately, one of them caught him halfway through his business. "General? Are you all right?"

Ancano jolted and turned around indignantly. It was a guard, all right. She had the gilded armor going for her and everything. She also looked like she wanted to just curl up and die right about then. Ancano fought an immense urge to grant her wish.

"Quite all right, yes, thank you," he said coolly. His head was starting to throb again. "I would advise you return to your duties."

"I heard a scream coming from your tent."

Ancano just gave her a look.

The guard nodded sheepishly and scurried off.

Thalmor dignity in a nutshell. That's what that was. Ancano was glad he could provide such an excellent example to his soldiers. Well, the ones who hadn't been burned to a crisp by a swarm of dragons, at any rate. He wondered if the survivors even had any respect for him anymore.

His tent felt positively warm in comparison to the outdoors. He rubbed his hands together as he stepped back inside. That bottle was still sitting on the table where he'd left it. Right on top of the map of Skyrim, in fact.

A few seconds passed in utter silence. Ancano stared at the bottle.

_If a man can ascend to godhood, anyone can._

Not quite, Ancano thought. He imagined the gift of divine power was best suited to someone who deserved it.


	23. Noster 4

Morndas, 9:51 AM, 5th of Morning Star, 4E 202

Alftand

Things were a lot easier these days. People kept talking about how awful the war with the Thalmor was, but for Noster, the crisis was already over. He felt pretty safe down here.

Most of the people who wanted to immigrate to Alftand already had. The population had leveled out at around eight thousand. This basically meant two things. One, Noster didn't have to try to find new things for all the newcomers to do. Two, he'd gotten enough extra hands that someone else could do the tedious paperwork kind of business. He was perfectly happy with just handing it over to someone else.

Organizing everyone into work teams had been a good decision. Still, it was basically a moneyless system, and a lot of people weren't really happy with that. Noster didn't even know, he wasn't a politician. Was Alftand supposed to have a private sector, separate from all the farms and forges and everything?

Back in Whiterun, the city didn't directly run that much. There was the Jarl and his associates, the town guards, and a few bits of utility staff. Food was handled by plenty of farms outside on the plains, all competing to sell their food for the lowest prices. It was a hub for the whole province's trade routes. Imports and exports were bought and sold every day.

It wasn't that easy here in Alftand, though, because… Well, because it was Alftand. There was a single farming setup, deep underground, which produced a fixed amount of food. No one came here for trade. It was so rigid. They'd barely even had a proper celebration for the New Life Festival.

Alftand was more of a military stronghold than a proper city, but now there were a bunch of people wanting to do people things and… He didn't even know. Economy things. He was a soldier. And then a beggar, once he was done being a soldier. Money wasn't exactly what he was best at.

The Dragonborn himself wasn't exactly helping matters. He spent most of his time down in Blackreach, doing Divines-knew-what, while life went on upstairs. And he kept asking for men to be sent down there. There'd already been, what, two hundred fifty people moved to Blackreach?

And of course, none of them were allowed to come back up into Alftand, it'd take only one of them to spoil the secret. Noster had started just moving all the surplus food down there with them. Might as well.

Normally, a steward served as an advisor to the Jarl, in but Noster's case… Well, the Dragonborn wasn't exactly a Jarl. Noster himself was basically just there to handle the boring day-to-day stuff. Which was fine, but he was having to deal with the day-to-day stuff right now. He had a little office for this stuff and everything.

A well-mannered Orsimer man—well, not a man like man versus mer, orcs were mer, man like not a woman—Noster really needed more sleep—some Orsimer, an Overseer Something-Or-Other, was sitting across his big stone desk from him.

"We need more hands for the hydro farms," the overseer was saying, in his big deep gruff orc voice. "We're barely meeting our quotas."

The hydro farms were only able to grow a few things, but it seemed like the Dwemer had at least known about potatoes. And a few other vegetables and such. They had enough to get by. But this overseer must not have known that the quota was quite a lot higher than the amount of food the people in Alftand actually ate. "We're not exactly short on manpower, you know."

"That's not the problem. We can harvest everything, replant everything, but it's not like a normal farm. The solution needs constant maintenance. It's a miracle we're even able to work with it at all. Most of the people we've been getting have no idea how to use machinery."

Noster frowned. "All right, I'll see to that. The labor you get in the future should be more, uh… Skilled. Yes. Is that all?"

"Am I ever going to get paid for this?"

Of course.

"In the event we get the luxury of a normal economy, yes," Noster said coolly.

"You know that isn't really…"

"I know, but we're at war, we're doing all we can."

Before the orc could say anything more, the doors swung open. It was one of the guards. She had some sort of paper in her hand.

"Yes?" Noster looked up at the guard blankly.

"I'm sorry, am I interrupting something?" The guard leaned back a little bit.

"No, we're set here," the overseer said. "Thank you, steward." He half-nodded, half-bowed respectfully to Noster, and then he was off.

Once the overseer was past her, the guard stepped inside and closed the doors.

"What's that you've got there?" Noster narrowed his eyes at the little paper thing.

"A letter for the Dragonborn. The courier that brought it said it was for his eyes only, but he didn't want to come inside Alftand, and… I can't find the Dragonborn."

"I don't suppose you know who this is from?"

"The courier didn't know. He'd gotten it from another courier. Where's the Dragonborn?"

"I don't know, but you can just leave it with me, I'll get it to him."

"Are you sure?" The guard shifted uneasily.

"Of course, no problem," Noster said brightly. "You're not abandoning your duty, you're fine."

He held out his hand to the guard. She reluctantly walked over and handed him the paper. It was a sealed envelope. Made sense.

After the guard left, Noster was alone in this room with the letter. Who was even sending him mail? It wasn't very well-protected, just a simple wax seal with some random little design on it.

What he should have done was gone straight down to the cathedral, headed through into Blackreach, found the Dragonborn and given him his letter. But he didn't. He sat right where he was, and looked down at the envelope on his desk.

For all he knew, this was a thank-you note for killing some bandits, or an invitation to some social function. He had no right to be nosing about in the Dragonborn's business anyway. Iseus was the only reason that the Steward of Alftand wasn't still a beggar in the streets of Solitude.

Surely Noster owed him more respect than going through his mail.

It wasn't like the Dragonborn had anything to hide from him.

Yeah.

Noster looked down at the letter again, then suddenly got up and locked the doors.

He was very careful in opening the wax seal. Didn't want to tear the paper, or damage the wax at all. His heart was starting to race. This was the worst. This was worse than any scouting mission he'd ever been on.

He ended up gradually worming the edge of a folding knife in between the wax and paper, and tilting it up like that. Nothing tore.

To his relief, the letter didn't promptly explode in his face. He almost didn't want to open up the envelope, even though he'd already broken the seal. This was wrong. This was so, so wrong. He almost felt sick.

Inside the envelope was a single, folded piece of paper. His hands were trembling so badly. He had to stop and just breathe for a few seconds before he was ready to unfold it.

_I-_

_Fascinating proposal. Have seen a number of similar endeavors before, but none worked. Yours is even more audacious than the last. Will be impressed if it works. Recommend caution._

_These don't really occur in nature. You'll have to use the process for each one. Unfortunately, I cannot be of much more help, but please let me know if there are any more developments._

_-N_

Wait a minute. What?

Noster felt like his brain was iced up. What did he do with this information? Well, first he… What did people do in this situation? He was a scout, not a spy, there was a big difference! What did people do when they'd just read a secret message? Was this seriously happening? This could not seriously be happening. He couldn't be doing this.

Or he could. Or… The Nord waited another minute or so, just focusing on his breath. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Just… Breathing. Calming down. That was good.

Once he'd come to his senses a bit, he retrieved a fresh sheet of paper and a quill. Dipped it in his inkwell, set to work copying the message. Letter for letter. He tried to even match the handwriting, though it didn't work that well. His hand was still a little shaky anyway.

But he successfully wrote it down. He wanted to start studying it right then, but honestly, he couldn't. What had he just done? Read a letter addressed to the Dragonborn? Was he spying on the Dragonborn? Why?

Noster rested his elbows on his desk, laid his head in his hands. He felt like passing out. That would have been nice right about then. Maybe he'd wake up and he wouldn't have just betrayed his leader.

Some amount of time passed. He took another look at the letter.

The _I _was obviously Iseus. So the person knew the Dragonborn's real name. They'd probably spoken with each other. No idea about the _N_. Some mysterious benefactor who wanted to keep his relationship with the Dragonborn secret, seemed like.

Most of the rest of the letter didn't stand out to Noster. He just didn't know what it was about. But the first two words sure stood out. _Fascinating proposal._ This wasn't a message from some random interested party. It wasn't even a reply to some simple request. Iseus had already proposed something to this N person.

And it wasn't just a proposal, by the sound of it. Iseus was actively working on something. _If there are any more developments._ He was working on something new. Noster didn't like it.

He did have to get this letter back together, though. He re-folded the paper, put it back in the envelope. This still felt seriously wrong.

In order to reattach the wax, Noster held a scrap of dwarven metal over a candle, then pressed it against the bottom of the seal until it was sticky again. Then he lined the squished wax blob up with the stained circle it'd left on the paper envelope, and pushed firmly around the edges till it was rooted where it had been. The actual seal design wasn't really affected, thankfully. He was pretty sure he'd actually get away with this.

Noster probably should have just erased this little experience from his mind and gone on with his day. He didn't need to know about this, or else Iseus would've told him. Security of state kind of stuff. He'd seen it all the time in the Legion.

But Iseus had already shown him Blackreach, didn't that mean he was cleared to know just about anything? Not really, that wasn't how need-to-know things worked, but this felt wrong. This felt very wrong. And not just because Noster was, in fact, spying on the Dragonborn.

That was enough calming-down time. Noster folded the paper he'd copied the message onto, stowed it away beneath some other documents of his. That'd do for now.

Then he snatched up the letter and started on his way out. Iseus did still have to read it.


	24. J'zargo 4

Morndas, 8:40 AM, 5th of Morning Star, 4E 202

Sinderion's Field Laboratory

"Hey. Wake up."

"Mmf." J'zargo buried his face in his pillow. "No."

"Yes." A hand rolled him onto his back.

J'zargo rubbed his eyes and looked up. It was Iseus, of course. His spot on the bed was cold. He'd been up for a while.

"Fine, Khajiit is awake… Maybe…" J'zargo stretched out his limbs, and sat up wearily. "What time is it?"

"What, do you care?"

"No, not really."

Iseus was already dressed, J'zargo realized. He had his shoes on and everything. In one hand, at his side, he held a book-sized leather pouch. J'zargo had never seen it before.

Rather than comment on it, the Khajiit simply swung his legs out to rest his feet on the floor, and looked up at Iseus expectantly.

"You've learned a lot over the past weeks," the Dragonborn said. "In a more ideal world, I'd want you to practice for a lot longer before I started handing you true challenges. We _are_ at war, though. We've taken long enough."

"J'zargo does not know. He likes it in here." J'zargo grinned cheekily. He'd actually spent the New Life Festival right here in the laboratory. Not a bad place to be.

Iseus disregarded the comment. "This is for you," he said, holding the pouch out. It was much lighter than J'zargo expected.

He laid it upon his lap, unbuttoned and opened it. Given the shape of the pouch, he had thought it would simply contain a book, perhaps a spell tome. When he had taken hold of it, he realized it would be something else. He should have been able to guess this.

The pouch was lined with shaped padding. Most of the space was filled by a silver circlet—within its diameter, a silver pendant, a silver ring, and silver-studded black velvet gloves, fingerless. They were arranged within the padding with immaculate neatness, as though they were on display in a museum.

J'zargo looked up at the Dragonborn, eyebrows raised. "Do these do what J'zargo believes them to do?"

"Most likely," he said cheerfully, sitting down on the bed next to him. "Enchanting and alchemy have always had a close relationship. It's true that enchanting is a much more magically attuned practice than alchemy. Enchanting is generally counted as a school of magic, and alchemy isn't. They often do very different things, too. But isn't it fascinating that there is a type of potion that improves your enchantments, and a type of enchantment that improves your potions?"

The apprentice needed a moment to process what exactly this meant. But only a moment. It was obvious. One could go back and forth between potions and enchantments, strengthening them every time. "Khajiit is certain that if this provided items of infinite power, someone would have done it already."

"After a little while, it levels out," the Dragonborn said. "And it's a waste of soul gems to do that very much."

"Why?" J'zargo knew rather little about enchanting, but he knew that magical weapons needed to constantly consume filled soul gems to work, while magical apparel did not. It seemed like a valid investment. One soul gem, one magic ring or whatever it would be.

"Because you'd be getting way less than optimal a result if you used anything but the most powerful soul gems. You know. Grand soul gems. They're really rare, and white-souled creatures of that power are rare too."

"White-souled," the Khajiit repeated blankly.

"Anything that's not a man or mer is white-souled. … Man and mer are black-souled, they don't even fit in normal soul gems and that's messed up anyway. So it's not at the peak of possible power, but, uh… What you have in your lap there is some of the most powerfully enchanted gear I've made. They're yours."

"Are you serious?" J'zargo looked back down at the pouch. He was having slight difficulty understanding what he had just been given. "J'zargo thought he would have to earn his power over far longer a time than this."

"We're at war, remember? I would've given you these immediately, but that's bad practice." The Dragonborn shook his head, then got up and started past the fireplace, towards the far side of the room, where the alchemy labs and the enchanting table were. "I have a matching set. I don't like to wear them when I'm just practicing."

"J'zargo supposes you do not wish to become dependent on them." He took a long swig from the goblet of water by the bed. That was just there. This place certainly looked very lived in.

"Correct. But we've already been experiencing the benefits of magical enhancement," Iseus said, turning to sit against the stone shelf with all the magic things on it. "When was the last time you checked out back?"

"A few days ago, why?"

A moment's pause, and then Iseus was heading for the doors. "C'mon."

There was very little noise inside the laboratory, most of the time, But when the Dragonborn opened those doors, J'zargo noticed an odd ringing sound, very faint, coming from someplace out there. He already knew what it was, but he followed along regardless.

While J'zargo had been practicing his skills with alchemy, the Dragonborn had been hard at work behind the laboratory. A great swathe of earth had been leveled more or less flat. It was filled with brilliant, unnaturally cold white light, almost blinding to look at, yet it illuminated nothing around it. This was definitely the source of the ringing sound, yet it drowned nothing else out.

The crimson nirnroot was far easier to work with than the aboveground counterpart, it seemed. There were hundreds of them, all in neat rows and columns. Hundreds. J'zargo dared not come closer than ten or twelve paces.

Iseus smiled and leaned against the corner of the laboratory building. "What do you think?"

J'zargo was at a loss for words. Above him, the false sky of Blackreach's ceiling glimmered as always. Around him, glowing mushrooms stood as tall as trees, eerie alien tendrils hanging low from their rims. Yet these things were simply part of the cavern's nature. Before him lay one man's accomplishment. He was beginning to understand how far the Dragonborn's affinity for alchemy reached.

"Have you read Sinderion's book? The Nirnoot Missive?"

That was an unexpected subject change. J'zargo turned and looked at the Imperial, confused. "Ah… No?"

"Everyone knows the nirnroot is magical. I mean, look at them." The crimson nirnroots were all right there, in their little field of light and sound. "They're obviously not normal plants."

J'zargo nodded. He did not need to be told that part.

"But Sinderion is the first person I've seen to start wondering about how far the nirnroot's magical power reaches. He seemed to think that these plants… What were his words? They contain untapped potential to create potions the likes of which have never been seen in our day. That's it. I think he was onto something, so I decided to try my hand at cultivating them myself. And it turns out the crimson nirnorots are extremely forgiving, as long as they stay in Blackreach. They like it here, they grow quickly, they're great. And they're magical.

"There's a reason I decided to put them right outside our laboratory. This isn't exactly an ideal place to grow them. We're pretty far from any bodies of water in the cavern. But they're pretty damn close to us! Sure, there's a wall in the way, but when we're making potions, these are all a stone's throw away. Hundreds of nirnroots. All in one place. All growing, glowing, ringing, _radiating_ magical energy."

A smile slowly began to play on J'zargo's lips. He enjoyed the Dragonborn's sense of strategy. The Synod and the College of Whispers had dedicated themselves to hoarding power. The College of Winterhold dedicated itself to discovering power. The Dragonborn seemed to prefer to create power on his own. "Have you observed any tangible effects?"

"My potions are almost twice as powerful as normal," he said. "This is without the enchanted gear."

So his own potions were more powerful in kind. Making potions outside Blackreach in the future might be disappointing. J'zargo moved over to lean against the building next to Iseus. "So. What potions would you like J'zargo to start work on?"

"I won't have the ingredients all put together for a little bit, but I thought you should start experimenting with the gear now. Get a feel for it."

J'zargo nodded, then passed behind Iseus, walking back around to the doors. He half expected to find a dwarven centurion standing there on the road just to surprise him, but no, the cavern was as secure as always. He'd always thought a quest for power would involve more personal danger.

Now when he returned to his lab, he got to put on his new things first. The circlet sat easily enough upon his head, and the pendant around his neck. The gloves had not been made for Khajiit hands, but as they were fingerless, it mattered little for his dexterity. Magic rings customarily were worn on the index finger, but again, not made for Khajiit hands. He put it on his actual ring finger. No trouble there. Now he was dressed with fine silver jewelry all over.

At first, he felt no difference. In fact, even when he sat down in front of his lab setup, it just felt like always, besides that his fingers were constricted at the first knuckle by velvet gloves.

Then he started making a potion. Nothing special. Just some bleeding crown mushrooms and lavender flowers. Their common effect was magic resistance, which was one of those fair few alchemical effects to have an identical counterpart in enchanting. Nothing notable about it, besides how he felt.

It was as though he'd just woken up from the most reinvigorating nap of his life. Like all of his past potions had been concocted while he suffered from a drunken haze, and now he was finally sober. He was focused in ways he did not know he could be focused. It did not seem like it would affect much of his routine, which essentially consisted of grinding and mashing and heating things up and hoping for the best. But he hadn't felt like this since he'd imbibed that potion of destruction outside the College of Winterhold, the day he met the Dragonborn. That man was showing him whole new worlds.

As he waited for the mixture to heat, a pair of bare hands laid on his shoulders. J'zargo tensed briefly, then sighed and smiled. He did not even bother to look up at the man behind him.

"How does it feel?" Iseus was standing right above him as he worked. This felt familiar.

What a good question. He struggled for an apt answer. "Khajiit feels… Alive."

Iseus chuckled softly. "That sounds right. What ingredients did you mix?"

"Bleeding crown, and… Ah… Lavender." J'zargo watched as the alchemical vapor condensed, began to form into single drops, one by one, dripping down the alembic's neck into the central dish. It was strange, how such mundane plant life could turn into such powerful substances.

"A good combination," Iseus said. His voice was coming from right over J'zargo's shoulder. "Magical effects like these, you know… They're like wielding a Daedric sword. You take hold of it, and it's like any sword. But when you swing it for the first time…"

The dish was filling up nicely. He couldn't stop watching it. "How could J'zargo have gone without it?"

"Oh, by using a regular steel sword, of course. But for when you really need _power_… As much as you can possibly put forth… You need the very best, the sharpest edge, the hardest blade that the world can give you. And if that's not enough, you need to make your own."

"Like you did," J'zargo murmured.

"Like I did. And now it's your turn. You can taste my power. You can work the mechanics of alchemy with my kind of control. Tell me how _that_ feels."

J'zargo might have said something in reply. He did not know. For so long, he had aspired to become great. He still did aspire for this. The Dragonborn was gladly lending a helping hand. More than that, really. The Dragonborn was gladly bringing him into his own sphere. The Khajiit was sure Iseus knew entirely well just how he felt about power.

A few seconds passed. J'zargo's little reverie passed with them. He laid a hand on the Dragonborn's and looked back at him. "Your ingredients, yes? Assembling them for use?"

"Right." Iseus smirked at him, and turned away to exit the laboratory. He put his sheathed sword on his belt on the way out.

After the first potion, J'zargo made a second, and then a third. It didn't take very long for him to get used to how the enchanted gear affected what he did. The Dragonborn was right. It was like wielding an unusually powerful weapon. He could have returned to using a normal one without feeling too bad about it, but this certainly got more done. That was the theory, at least.

A little while later, the Dragonborn came back in. He'd been working hard on something. His skin shone with sweat. He pulled his shirt off and started wiping himself dry with a rag.

J'zargo turned around and arched an eyebrow. "What were you doing out there?"

"Gardening," Iseus grinned. He slipped into a clean shirt soon enough. "The ingredients are about ready. How's your work?"

"Exciting, to say the least. J'zargo wonders why so few people bother with alchemy, considering this experience."

"I think we've had that conversation." Wherein those inclined to pursue magical things would generally focus on actual schools of magic. Yes.

For a little bit, the Dragonborn sat by J'zargo and watched him work. He even tried his hand at the same potion, without putting his own enchanted gear on. J'zargo wondered whether his augmented skills would make him as powerful an alchemist as Iseus was right then.

Someone knocked on the door. There weren't exactly many people it could be, so J'zargo ignored it. Iseus got up and answered it himself. The faint ringing of the crimson nirnroots made it in.

"Good morning," Noster Eagle-Eye's voice said from the doorway.

"Hey, 'morning, Noster, what're you doing down here?" Iseus asked.

"We had a courier come in looking for you, had this, uh… Letter, here. Your eyes only."

J'zargo glanced over his shoulder. The old Nord veteran was handing the Dragonborn a small, plain paper envelope.

"Got it. You feeling all right, Noster?"

"Running on a bit too little sleep, maybe. I'll talk to you later, then?"

"Yeah, go run your city. See you later!" Iseus pushed the doors shut. The laboratory was quiet again.

"What's that?" J'zargo twisted around all the way to face the rest of the room properly.

"Uh…" Iseus didn't answer right away. He popped open the seal, pulled out a folded piece of paper, scanned over some text on it… Then crumpled it all up and threw it into the fireplace.

J'zargo stared.

"Some random thing," the Dragonborn said. "Imperial logistical stuff. The Legion likes me now, apparently."

"You did put your sword in that Ulfric fellow for them," J'zargo said.

"Yeah, exactly. I mean… I don't know why they needed me to do that. It wasn't really hard or anything." He wandered over to sit down by J'zargo again.

"Ulfric did kill the High King of Skyrim."

"Well, yes. Fortunately, I'm not the High King of Skyrim."

"Were you always so good with a sword?" J'zargo had never seen the Dragonborn use his weaponry very much. There was that one time with the dwarven sphere and the hammer, but besides that, not really. Still, Ulfric Stormcloak was the only other person he knew to have a command of the dragons' voice magic, and the Dragonborn had apparently killed him without a bit of effort.

Iseus paused. It was too long a pause. He looked down at the alchemy lab, then back up at J'zargo. Eventually: "As a matter of fact, no. I got a fair chunk of my power from a Daedric Prince."

Now it was J'zargo's turn to pause. "Is this a joke?"

"No, it's not. I'm serious." Iseus certainly looked serious. He was expressionless, in fact.

"How did that manage to happen?"

"Uh… This was a few months ago, I think. When I was still in the fight against Alduin."

J'zargo waited for the rest.

"When I went to get the Elder Scroll for Paarthurnax, I had to meet with a man who was living north of Winterhold. In a cave in the ice, basically. He wanted me to get the Elder Scroll too, and he was the only person in Skyrim to possess an attunement sphere. It's a thing I needed to unlock the entrance from Alftand to Blackreach. It's a long story how I found him, but I did, and he gave me the attunement sphere. Which was good.

"But he also gave me a lexicon. In his cave, there was this… Enormous Dwemer door thing. It wouldn't open without the lexicon as a key, but when I got it, the lexicon had no information in it. Like a keyblank. I had to take it with me to the Tower of Mzark, and encode it using the Elder Scroll the Dwemer had stored there. The scroll was actually inside a machine specifically for putting its contents in lexicons. I even needed to plug in the lexicon just to get the machine to give me the scroll, so… Not exactly far out of my way. Still following?"

He nodded.

"Right. Before I left for Alftand, because this was going to be my first visit to Blackreach… Before I left, this big ball of… Void energy or something appeared in front of me. Hermaeus Mora, the Daedric Prince of knowledge. Told me that the man in the cave was a pawn of his, and nearing the end of his usefulness. Which was… Great. I didn't have a lot to say to him, he'd made up his mind about what was going to happen.

"So I got the Elder Scroll, I loaded up the cube with Elder Scroll runes, and I went back to Winterhold, to this man, in his cave. He was really happy to see me again, he put the, uh… Lexicon, he put it in the big Dwemer door, and it opened up and there was a tunnel to another whole room inside. The only thing in the other room was a book. He followed me through, and the moment he made it in, he was just, like… Disintegrated. Turned to ash.

"It turns out the book was the Oghma Infinium. Ancient tome of knowledge, extremely valuable. Extremely dangerous. Now, I could've tried just walking off, but I didn't want to make Hermaeus Mora mad. That's why I came back to the cave at all, not wanting to anger a Daedric Prince. So I opened up the book and read it, right there, on the spot. I had a choice between the paths of steel, shadow and spirit. When I was done reading through any one path, the book would vanish, so... I picked steel."

"And now you're a god when it comes to combat," J'zargo said.

"Well, I was already good, it just made me even better, I guess. I'm lucky I got out of that so unscathed. Why do you think Hermaeus Mora arranged for this whole expedition?"

"So… You would be able to read the tome in the cave, and become a powerful servant of his?"

"I thought that at first, too. But he's not Mehrunes Dagon or someone, he doesn't benefit from having someone running around cracking skulls. I'm pretty sure me getting to read the Oghma Infinium is just a pleasant by-product of the main reason for that whole scheme."

"Which is?"

"The lexicon," Iseus said. "The contents of an Elder Scroll, turned readable. Crystallized. And now right in Hermaeus Mora's lap. Come on, the Daedric Prince of knowledge? I bet he had a field day with that one."

J'zargo said nothing. Apparently, Daedric Princes played for power like the Synod.

"If you can help it, J'zargo, stay as far away as you can from anything involving Daedra. They're extremely dangerous. They don't think like we do. They don't even think like dragons do. The Daedric Princes are like children who grew up as all-powerful beings. They expect us all to do what they want, and they throw temper tantrums when we don't. And… That's assuming what they want is actually any good. Some of them want things like the Oblivion Crisis."

Well… That was informative. How had the Dragonborn gone around with that experience under his belt without anyone knowing? "Khajiit had not planned to consult the Daedra to acquire more power, but this is sound advice."

"Yeah… It's pretty self-evident. How's your potion?"

J'zargo turned back and glanced at his work. "Almost done."

"Good." Iseus nodded approvingly, then got up and headed over to the doors again. He stopped with his hands on the handles. "Clear that all out when it's done. We're about to start the real work."


	25. Brynjolf 5

Middas, 8:18 PM, 7th of Morning Star, 4E 202

The Bannered Mare

The moral of the story was: If you make a bunch of friends who are great with swords, don't wander off from them.

Brynjolf's new friends for life were happy to get back to their cozy little boathouse. They were probably hitting each other with swords and stuffing their faces with that amazing food of theirs. And he'd been invited along, but after over a week on the road with Farkas, Vilkas and Aela, the thief figured he just needed some space. As in, immediately.

So he went straight from the gates of Whiterun to the Bannered Mare. It was sort of _the_ inn to visit here. Spacious building, nice view out over the Plains distict, could actually see the gate straight down the road from here. Warm fire, plenty of drink, good food, decent rooms, bearable musicians, not too bad to relax at.

Brynjolf took a table for two to himself. And an ale, he took a tankard of ale, right from the bar. He even paid for it. So un-thief-like. He'd just traveled for days, had a desperate fight for his life, and then traveled for a few more days. His body was worn, and his mind was worn worse, he just needed to rest.

It was that time of evening where people were just starting to get off from work, but there were still plenty of tables free, it was a big inn. People were sitting around, drinking, chatting. A bard towards the middle of the room was strumming a gentle melody on a lute. The fire was crackling, the room was warm… One could almost forget Skyrim's little predicament.

"Hey, bard!" Brynjolf tossed the lute-playing fellow a single gold septim. He snatched it out of the air. Good catch. "Your latest song, if you please."

"It would be a pleasure, my good sir," the bard answered graciously. He was one of those types who obviously wanted to do the whole blond-haired-Nord look, but just as obviously had no place in battle.

Brynjolf sat back and watched in silence. He hadn't heard a good song in ages.

The bard ran his thumb down the strings of his lute in a single graceful chord, then started a slow, somber tune. Brynjolf had never heard it before.

"A question that should have been asked long ago—  
For our freedom, our lives, to whom do we owe?  
We sing all our songs of the heroes of old,  
But the true sacrifices, they all go untold.

We need saviors to free us, our ancestors cried.  
We need for our hero to come turn the tide.  
The demons were slain, and so passed the worst.  
And our heroes live on, in our song and our verse.

But if one in a thousand will forever shine,  
Then what of the nine hundred and ninety-nine?  
The men who fight, spill their blood, die for a cause,  
Who pass on, forgotten, with no moment's pause.

Yet such a fate's not so bad as it might sound,  
And there's no despair that ought to be found.  
For we are as pebbles, the world as a pond.  
The ripples we leave here will carry beyond.

And even if no one gives us our own rhyme,  
The changes we leave here will echo through Time.  
To remember the unsung, this much I will say.  
Thanks to them, you and I are still here today."

The bard closed with the same chord from the start, then leaned back and took a deep breath. The entire inn had gone dead silent.

Then the lady at the bar clapped her hands. "Yeah!"

The bard laughed and turned to look at her. "Thank you, madam Hulda, for the gracious closer."

"I'd never heard that," some big guy in armor said. "What's it called?"

"The Song of No Title," the bard proclaimed. "I mean, that's the title. That's actually the title of the song."

"Who wrote that?" Brynjolf called out. He hadn't heard it either.

"I did," the bard said, with no small amount of pride. "This song was written, and performed, by the one and only Mikael of Whiterun."

"Really? I'm impressed," said Hulda.

Mikael nodded appreciatively. "I've had some time to rethink things. You know, when the Civil War ended, I thought that'd be it for a while. Especially with the dragon crisis over with. And then this business with the elves starts up, and I realize that heroes just aren't enough. They never have been. The bards of Tamriel have completely forgotten about everyone but the heroes, and if the bards have forgotten something, everyone has."

At some point, Brynjolf had emptied his tankard of ale. Hadn't even noticed. He lifted it to his lips to get the last dregs out, then started to get up for a refill.

"Here, let me get that for you," a woman's voice said.

She walked up from behind Brynjolf and plucked the tankard out of his hand. A young, strongly built, shrewd-looking Redguard lady. Her dress stopped just short of her shoulders, even on the sleeves, plenty of deep brown skin to look at. Her hair was awfully straight for a Redguard, though. Neatly parted, just shy of shouder-length, reminded Brynjolf of the Dragonborn. It took about a second and a half for him to realize she wanted something more than companionship from him.

"And you are, lass?" Brynjolf sat back down for lack of a better option.

He kind of missed the Dragonborn these days. Wondered what he was up to.

"Ale, right?" The woman crossed the room, filled the tankard from the tap, and came back before answering Brynjolf's question. "My name's Saadia, by the way."

"Well, I'd be honored if you'd sit with me, Saadia," Brynjolf said, gesturing to the empty chair across the little table from him.

The bard had started up some tune or other again. This one was a bit more upbeat.

Saadia sat down so gracefully it looked like a dance step. She rested her elbows on the table and smiled at Brynjolf. "Come far?"

"Yes and no and I don't even know anymore," Brynjolf grumbled through his tankard. He wasn't really drinking from it properly. Rather keep his nerves sharp, now. "Can't I get you a drink too?"

"Oh, no, I don't drink at all anyway. My body is a temple, that sort of thing."

Brynjolf scoffed. "Aye, lass, a temple of Dibella."

She laughed. It made Brynjolf feel special to get her to do that. "Fair enough, sir, fair enough. What's your name, then?"

"Ralof," Brynjolf said. … Yep.

"Mmm. Ralof," Saadia repeated, except when she said it, it sounded like the name of an exotic wine, not of a random Nord. "You didn't look so happy over here, sitting by yourself."

"My buddies didn't want to follow me in here," the thief muttered. He wondered what Saadia already knew about him. She was pretty good about not obviously fishing for information, at the least.

She couldn't have known where he'd just come from. The Companions were surprisingly good about guarding the secret of the whole werewolf thing. But Brynjolf had definitely been seen riding out of town with the Harbinger and two other higher-ups in that group.

It was unfortunately not very likely she knew he was with the Thieves Guild. Well, good for the rest of the guild, right then. But they'd been having some trouble keeping their reputation strong these days. He never thought that'd ever actually do any good for them, but now it paid to be unknown.

"Well, that's all right," Saadia was saying. "I work better one man at a time anyway."

Brynjolf swallowed involuntarily. He disguised it with a strategic sip of ale. "You making some kind of proposition, lass?"

"Oh, I don't know if I'd go _that_ far," the Redguard said. "But, still…" She grinned coyly.

"I came here to relax and have a drink, not be… Tortured by beautiful ladies."

"Lady. There's only one so far, Ralof, be careful."

"You are evil, lass."

"I can live with that."

Brynjolf paused and looked around the room, then turned back to her and spoke in a hushed voice. "Can you keep a secret, lass?"

"Try me," Saadia said with a conspiratorial grin.

"I'm here on behalf of the Black-Briars," Brynjolf said, making things up on the spot. "We're planning a big move into Whiterun Hold soon. I was actually supposed to be meeting someone here, but he hasn't shown up. I'm hoping he's all right."

Saadia nodded contemplatively. "What about your buddies, then?"

"Oh, my trade associates continued on their way to the Cloud District. I didn't even ask them what they're up to, it doesn't matter to me."

"Hmm. Maybe I could help you find your friend."

"Wouldn't count on that, lass," Brynjolf laughed darkly. "It's a dangerous business we play. If he doesn't make it here tonight, I'm gonna have to find my associates and let them know he's gone missing."

"I can only imagine what sort of a game has such high stakes."

"Well, business, right? There's this Nord ideal of the honest worker who gets by through decent labor alone, and let's face it, no one actually does that. Work is about thinking and scheming your way up through the ranks till you're on top of the pile. That's the way it always works."

"Reminds me a little of politics."

"Afraid I wouldn't know too much about that, lass, I'm just a tradesman. That's… That's my cover, all right, you can just say I'm a tradesman. But I'm definitely not your man for politics. Maven Black-Briar herself cares none for political games, and there's a reason."

"Which is?"

"Complete and utter waste of time," Brynjolf grinned.

"I'm fairly certain no one will argue _that_ point. I hear a lot of stories working here, and none of the exciting ones are ever about politics. I try to stay away from that sort of thing anyway."

Brynjolf sat up. "Wait a minute. You work here? I, I haven't been keeping you from anything, have I?"

"No, no, relax," Saadia smiled and raised her hands. "Come on. It's a weekday, it's not that busy, and… Frankly, I'm getting kind of interested in you, Ralof."

"If you insist." He sat back in his chair again, eyeing his tankard. It still wasn't quite empty.

"But now that you mention it, could I prevail on you to take this conversation someplace a little more… I don't know. Private? There's a side room over there." She nodded behind Brynjolf, at a door that didn't lead to the outside.

"Well, then, lass," Brynjolf grinned. He got up, pushed his chair in, started for the side room in question. It wasn't really a proper bedroom, there was a cooking spit over a hearth, and another door to the outside, and a staircase, and… He shook his head. That ale had gotten to him a bit. Strong stuff.

Saadia followed him into the room, and closed the doors behind them. The noise of the tavern instantly muted. "Now… Where were we?"

Brynjolf chuckled and turned around to look at the Redguard woman. She was beautiful. "I think something to do with you being interested in m-"

Something sharp jolted through Brynjolf's belly. He looked down. Saadia's delicate little hand was wrapped around the handle of an elven dagger. The blade was stuck halfway in his body.

Saadia's other hand clapped hard over his mouth. He couldn't resist. His muscles were failing him.

"Men," she smirked. "They're all the same. Sit down with them for five minutes, act nice, they'll do anything for you."

Brynjolf grunted. He wanted to push her away, but his arms wouldn't move from his sides. His legs wouldn't move either. The room somersaulted around him, and suddenly he was looking up at the ceiling. Couldn't feel a thing.

Saadia crouched over him. The look on her face made Brynjolf want to scream. "You couldn't have thought you'd stay out of our reach for that long. Your associates will just have to do without you, _Brynjolf_."

His vision was failing. Everything was going blurry. Everything was going dark.

**I don't really have a melody in mind for The Song of No Title. Whatever sounds kind of mournful but still easy to play, I suppose.  
**


	26. Ancano 6

Sundas, 6:06 PM, 11th of Morning Star, 4E 202

Windhelm

When a king chose his circle of advisors, he would be wise to pick advisors who disagreed with him. If they already agreed with their king, they would tell him to do what he would have done anyway, and what sort of advisory role was that?

Ancano had read something like that in a book somewhere. He didn't really remember much else about it.

But he knew that the point of having advisors at all was that one's own perspective was not enough. To make the wisest decisions, one needed all possible sides of the story. Even the sides that one didn't like. _Especially_ those sides.

Elevir and the remaining regulars had to return to Markarth. The 14th Unit had business in Labyrinthian. Ancano wished to travel with neither of them.

He did not have to answer to anyone. He did not want to answer to anyone. He had the Thalmor's side of the story, and it was proving insufficient for him. So while his elves traveled west, he traveled east.

During Skyrim's civil war, Windhelm had been the headquarters of the rebellion. After all, its Jarl had been Ulfric Stormcloak himself. The Nords here weren't just allowed to worship Talos, they actively did it out of spite. Besides Winterhold and Riften, this city was farther from Markarth than any other hold capital, but Ancano cared little. Windhelm was the place to go for some answers.

It had been remarkably easy to stop looking like a Thalmor general. He left his uniform in a chest in a hollowed-out log, and replaced it with a set of plain cotton traveler's robes. And just for effect, he stopped shaving. And he did away with his slicked-back hairstyle, combed it into a Nordic center part. His hair was actually long enough for it to work. He was surprised with himself.

Of course, he was still obviously an Altmer. But he'd heard that Windhelm had grown more tolerant since the war's end. Maybe. He could just incinerate anyone who bothered him, he supposed.

Windhelm was just at the southern lip of the perpetually frozen climate of the Winterhold. Most of Eastmarch was full of volcanic springs, and even at this time of year, it would be pleasantly warm there. But not Windhelm, no. It was right at the northern edge of the hold, and the city was constantly covered in frost. The bridge up to the city gates was long and icy. From here, Windhelm was a monolithic mass of dark gray. It put an undeserved chill in his chest.

With a cloak wrapped around himself, the hood hanging over his brow, Ancano passed through the city gates without comment. The two guards on duty hardly paid him any notice. He was just a nameless traveler. Something about that felt oddly satisfying. Not living in fear, not living being feared. He could appreciate that.

Everything here was made of stone. It reminded Ancano somewhat of Markarth, besides that the stone was much darker, more like Solitude, and the designs were Nordic, not dwarven. And that everything was frozen over. Snow was dusted over everything that faced up. Icicles hung from every possible ledge. The chill worked its way down to Ancano's bones. That was certainly unlike Markarth.

The streets were very narrow, and the buildings were no less intimidating up close than far away. They all towered high over the elf's head. He tried not to look up at them. It was very easy to get lost in Windhelm, and he dared not ask for directions.

Unfortunately, Ancano had only been here a couple of times before, for College-related errands. It took far too long for him to find what he wanted. He wandered around from street to street, going up staircases, down other staircases, past gardens, past random flower patches that obviously weren't part of any garden… He even managed to end up looking at the courtyard of the Palace of the Kings at one point.

But eventually, he found it. From the outside, it looked much like any other building, but for a distinctive steepled needlepoint roof. The front door wasn't very large, a robust wooden thing nestled in two concentric arches of snow-crusted stone, and it was closed. Discouraging, but this was what Ancano had come here for. This was the Temple of Talos.

He should have simply walked in, but he did not. He had come many miles at such a speed that he nearly killed his horse a few times—many healing spells had been involved—but now he stopped in his tracks. What could anyone expect of him? He was an elf, in front of a temple dedicated to the accomplishments of men.

The thing that motivated Ancano to enter, in the end, was not his will to learn more of his enemies' way of thinking, nor his desire to finish what he had started. It was cold outside, so cold that it stung his skin, and it was probably warmer inside. He opened the door and stepped inside.

The air in here was mildly cool. Vast improvement. He shut the door behind himself with a gloved hand, took a moment to breathe, then looked up at his surroundings.

Ancano was in a vaulted hall of black stone bricks. It felt… Smaller than he'd expected. Sunlight shone in softly through tall, narrow windows along either wall, but the hall was mostly lit by clusters of candles on iron stands. There was a single row of wide benches running up the middle of the room, and at the far wall, a massive stone statue of a man.

He wore a long, flowing cape, and what was obviously meant to be steel armor, including one of those winged Nord helmets. His hands rested upon the pommel of a sword whose point must have been imbedded in the earth. He was lit from above and beneath, casting sharp shadows over himself. Even from a distance, his appearance was one of vigilance, and ominous, indefinite power. Ancano felt another eerie chill. This was the man who had become a god.

A single priest stood by the statue. Orange-yellow hooded robes, typical nine-divine business.

"Hello!" No, wait. Priestess.

"Good evening," Ancano said in his best Imperial accent. "Who are you?"

The priestess had realized he was an elf. "I might ask the same of you," she said testily. "My name is Jora. I am a priestess of Talos."

As Ancano walked up along the side of the benches, he said, "My name is Alacir. I am a… Truthfully, I am no longer certain what I am." At least part of that was true.

Jora laughed mirthlessly. "Well. This is the first time I've seen a high elf come in here. But, there's no rule saying you're not allowed in here. What can I do for you?"

Ancano sat down heavily on the bench at the very front. It had been a long, hard ride. He removed his hood. He would look like an Altmer who had lived among Nords for a long time. Unkempt, unshaven, even sporting a Nordic hairstyle. That was the idea, at least.

"I just wanted to learn more about Talos," he said meekly.

"In that case, you've come to the right place indeed." Jora smiled respectfully and sat down on the bench next to him.

The statue of Talos stood high above both of them. Ancano noticed a much smaller sculpture in front of it. It was the same sort of cross-shape as amulets of Talos, but about the size of a serving platter. He also noticed a door, off to the right of the statue, on the back wall. It couldn't have lead to the outdoors.

"How did he do it?" Ancano murmured. "Become a god. No one had ever done it. No one has done it since."

"Why, are you looking to follow his steps?"

Ancano gave her a miserable look.

"Sorry." Jora frowned. "No one really knows. It was a very long time ago, but more importantly, it happened after his death. Tiber Septim lived for over one hundred years—longer than any man before him. But now he is a divine."

Ancano stroked his beard pensively. He had been clean-shaven his whole life. Having a beard turned out to be rather exciting. "Hmm…" He had thought of a whole list of questions on the way over here, but he struggled to remember it. "Why is he one of the Nine Divines, though? I imagine that the easiest path for a mortal to attain immortality would be to go to Oblivion and do something with a Daedric Prince. And then Talos would simply be a very powerful Daedra."

"Talos, a Daedra?" Jora scoffed.

"It's just a thought."

"Whenever the Divines speak to us, they count themselves as nine, not eight. They have acknowledged Talos as one of their number. I suppose by the strictest definition, Talos is not an Aedra, seeing as he wasn't there for the creation of the world, but still. Nine Divines, not eight."

"Do they really call themselves nine?" Ancano's eyebrows shot up. If that was true, it validated quite a lot of the Nords' claims about Talos. He wasn't sure he'd take a priestess of Talos at face value for this one, but… "How do you get the Divines to speak to you?"

"It happens very rarely. Certainly not to anyone who simply asks for it, not even a priestess like myself."

"But the Daedra speak to us all the time."

"The Divines aren't so perversely interested in interfering with mortal affairs."

Ancano nodded slowly. He looked back up at the statue. In front of this effigy, the elf felt… Observed. Not just observed, he felt vulnerable. There was no way he could hide who he was from the Divines.

Maybe Talos was the ultimate Justiciar, the one who would make him pay one day.

Or maybe Ancano was just losing his mind.

"Why are you so interested in Talos, anyway?" Jora snapped him back to attention. "I'm sorry, Alacir, I'm just curious. We never get elves in here. Not even the dark elves who live here in Windhelm. Talos simply isn't their god."

"I'm curious," Ancano said, and that was the truth.

"Fair enough, I suppose. Elves have quite a different approach to the gods than men do, that much is for sure."

Ancano snickered. "You can say that again! … Yes. The argument my people would make is that Lorkhan ruined the elves' divine providence by forcing the Aedra to sacrifice themselves making this, ah… Mortal plane. Mundus."

Mundus was the true enemy of the Thalmor, he'd learned. This world which they all lived in. Every apparent crime committed by his colleagues, by himself, was ultimately irrelevant, because this whole world wouldn't exist for long anyway. That was the principle, at least.

"Another argument your people would make is that Talos cannot have become a god because he is a man, and men are weak," Jora said with such bitterness it made Ancano cringe.

"Something like that, yes," Ancano half-spoke, half-whispered.

Jora collected herself for a moment, then addressed him more gently. "I don't suppose that's the sort of thing you follow."

"No, Divines, no," the elf said. "It's just… Is there any room for elves in this temple?"

"I don't see why not," Jora shrugged. "You're certainly welcome to come back here. But we never see elves here. It would certainly be a first."

Ancano paused. "W… Why not?"

"The mythology of men has room enough for elves. The mythology of elves has no such room for men." The priestess paused, to let that sink in. "Your kind believes they were descended from the Divines, not created by them. It lets you think of yourselves as superior to us."

"It.. _Lets_ us." This was becoming strange.

"Of course. If the elves are the children of the Aedra, and men are not, then the elves must be superior to men. Skyrim happens to be at war with a group of elves who _love_ that way of thinking."

"The Thalmor." Ancano internally kicked himself for stating the obvious. If a subordinate of his had been so obtuse, he would have wanted to set their robes on fire. "I try to avoid them," he said, technically telling the truth once more.

"How welcome do you think a man would be in one of the temples in the Summerset Isles? The Thalmor don't care about the truth. They care about being superior to those around them."

Ancano swallowed. He felt so very far away from himself. Why did this affect him so? He'd heard far worse things said about him and his colleagues. The Thalmor are arrogant, the Thalmor are cruel, the Thalmor are evil. And…

He recalled something he'd said to Elevir, in his tent in Hjaalmarch. _I'm told elven supremacy is the only truth._

"That is quite a… Quite a viewpoint," Ancano mumbled. "I do wish the Thalmor didn't exist."

"Don't we all," Jora chuckled. "If their own kind hate them, they truly are lost."

It was time to change the subject. "Well… How has it been, being under Imperial rule once again?"

Jora did not have the chance to answer his question. That door to the right of the statue swung open. A man in dark blue robes stepped through.

"All right, I'm ready-" He stopped in his tracks when he saw Ancano. A second of dead silence passed. A high elf was sitting next to a priestess of Talos.

Then he lunged straight at Ancano, with a cry of, "Get away from her!"

The elf had no time to react. The robed man tackled him so hard that he fell off the back of the bench. His head narrowly missed the wooden seat of the next bench back, and he tumbled off to land hard on his side.

"Lortheim! No!" Jora shrieked. "He's a friend!"

It was too late. Ancano had already summoned a sword. The spectral weapon filled his right hand as he pushed himself up with his left. The man never stood a chance. In the same motion of his rising, Ancano returned the gesture of that lunge. The otherworldly blade skewered him like a pig. The elf was sure he was dead before he landed on the ground.

Ancano turned around slowly. Jora sat stock still on the bench. Her face had gone white as a sheet.

"Please…" she whimpered.

Ancano walked up to Jora and put his sword through her neck. Just like that. There was no ceremony to it. He hoped it didn't hurt too much.

He let go of the weapon and let it dissipate as the priestess fell. His mind was perfectly clear. He was trained for this. His training told him it was time to leave.

The general had to get back to Markarth immediately. Even if he'd rather just go into hiding. Even if he'd rather just kill them all. These men would never accept him. He might get obedience from his elves, but from men? They wanted him to die.

On the way out, Ancano turned back, took a last look at the mighty statue of Talos, and whispered, "Please forgive me."


End file.
